Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.

DRED

A

TALE OF THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP

BY

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

AUTHOR OF "UNCLE TOM'S CABIN"

"Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds:

His path was rugged and sore,—

Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,

Through many a fen, where the serpent feeds,

And man never trod before.

And when on earth he sunk to sleep,

If slumber his eyelids knew,

He lay where the deadly vine doth weep

Its venomous tears, that nightly steep

The flesh with blistering dew."

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1892

Copyright, 1856 and 1884,
By HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

PREFACE.

The writer of this book has chosen, once more, a subject from the scenes and incidents of the slave-holding states.

The reason for such a choice is two-fold. First, in a merely artistic point of view, there is no ground, ancient or modern, whose vivid lights, gloomy shadows, and grotesque groupings, afford to the novelist so wide a scope for the exercise of his powers. In the near vicinity of modern civilization of the most matter-of-fact kind exist institutions which carry us back to the twilight of the feudal ages, with all their exciting possibilities of incident. Two nations, the types of two exactly opposite styles of existence, are here struggling; and from the intermingling of these two a third race has arisen, and the three are interlocked in wild and singular relations, that evolve every possible combination of romance.

Hence, if the writer's only object had been the production of a work of art, she would have felt justified in not turning aside from that mine whose inexhaustible stores have but begun to be developed.

But this object, however legitimate, was not the only nor the highest one. It is the moral bearings of the subject involved which have had the chief influence in its selection.

The issues presented by the great conflict between liberty and slavery do not grow less important from year to year. On the contrary, their interest increases with every step in the development of the national career. Never has there been a crisis in the history of this nation so momentous as the present. If ever a nation was raised up by Divine Providence, and led forth upon a conspicuous stage, as if for the express purpose of solving a great moral problem in the sight of all mankind, it is this nation. God in his providence is now asking the American people, Is the system of slavery, as set forth in the American slave code, right? Is it so desirable, that you will directly establish it over broad regions, where, till now, you have solemnly forbidden it to enter? And this question the American people are about to answer. Under such circumstances the writer felt that no apology was needed for once more endeavoring to do something towards revealing to the people the true character of that system. If the people are to establish such a system, let them do it with their eyes open, with all the dreadful realities before them.

One liberty has been taken which demands acknowledgment in the outset. The writer has placed in the mouth of one of her leading characters a judicial decision of Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, the boldness, clearness, and solemn eloquence of which have excited admiration both in the Old World and the New. The author having no personal acquaintance with that gentleman, the character to whom she attributes it is to be considered as created merely on a principle of artistic fitness.

To maintain the unity of the story, some anachronisms with regard to the time of the session of courts have been allowed; for works of fiction must sometimes use some liberties in the grouping of incidents.

But as mere cold art, unquickened by sympathy with the spirit of the age, is nothing, the author hopes that those who now are called to struggle for all that is noble in our laws and institutions may find in this book the response of a sympathizing heart.

CONTENTS.

DRED.

A TALE OF THE GREAT DISMAL SWAMP.

CHAPTER I. THE MISTRESS OF CANEMA.

"Bills, Harry?—Yes.—Dear me, where are they?—There!—No. Here?—Oh, look!—What do you think of this scarf? Isn't it lovely?"

"Yes, Miss Nina, beautiful—but"—

"Oh, those bills!—Yes—well, here goes—here—perhaps in this box. No—that's my opera-hat. By the bye, what do you think of that? Isn't that bunch of silver wheat lovely? Stop a bit—you shall see it on me."

And, with these words, the slight little figure sprang up as if it had wings, and, humming a waltzing-tune, skimmed across the room to a looking-glass, and placed the jaunty little cap on the gay little head, and then, turning a pirouette on one toe, said, "There, now!"

"There, now!" Ah, Harry! ah, mankind generally! the wisest of you have been made fools of by just such dancing, glittering, fluttering little assortments of curls, pendants, streamers, eyes, cheeks, and dimples!

The little figure, scarce the height of the Venus, rounded as that of an infant, was shown to advantage by a coquettish morning-dress of buff muslin, which fluttered open in front to display the embroidered skirt, and trim little mouse of a slipper. The face was one of those provoking ones which set criticism at defiance. The hair, waving, curling, dancing hither and thither, seemed to have a wild, laughing grace of its own; the brown eyes twinkled like the pendants of a chandelier; the little, wicked nose, which bore the forbidden upward curve, seemed to assert its right to do so with a saucy freedom; and the pendants of multiplied brilliants that twinkled in her ears, and the nodding wreath of silver wheat that set off her opera-hat, seemed alive with mischief and motion.

"Well, what do you think?" said a lively, imperative voice,—just the kind of voice that you might have expected from the figure.

The young man to whom this question was addressed was a well-dressed, gentlemanly person of about thirty-five, with dark complexion and hair, and deep, full blue eyes. There was something marked and peculiar in the square, high forehead, and the finely-formed features, which indicated talent and ability; and the blue eyes had a depth and strength of color that might cause them at first glance to appear black. The face, with its strongly-marked expression of honesty and sense, had about it many careworn and thoughtful lines. He looked at the little, defiant fay for a moment with an air of the most entire deference and admiration; then a heavy shadow crossed his face, and he answered, abstractedly, "Yes, Miss Nina, everything you wear becomes pretty—and that is perfectly charming."

"Isn't it, now, Harry? I thought you would think so. You see, it's my own idea. You ought to have seen what a thing it was when I first saw it in Mme. Le Blanche's window. There was a great hot-looking feather on it, and two or three horrid bows. I had them out in a twinkling, and got this wheat in—which shakes so, you know. It's perfectly lovely!—Well, do you believe, the very night I wore it to the opera, I got engaged?"

"Engaged, Miss Nina?"

"Engaged!—Yes, to be sure! Why not?"

"It seems to me that's a very serious thing, Miss Nina."

"Serious!—ha! ha! ha!" said the little beauty, seating herself on one arm of the sofa, and shaking the glittering hat back from her eyes. "Well, I fancy it was—to him, at least. I made him serious, I can tell you!"

"But is this true, Miss Nina? Are you really engaged?"

"Yes, to be sure I am—to three gentlemen; and going to stay so till I find which I like best. May be, you know, I shan't like any of them."

"Engaged to three gentlemen, Miss Nina?"

"To be sure!—Can't you understand English, Harry? I am now—fact."

"Miss Nina, is that right?"

"Right?—why not? I don't know which to take—I positively don't; so I took them all on trial, you know."

"Pray, Miss Nina, tell us who they are."

"Well, there's Mr. Carson;—he's a rich old bachelor—horridly polite—one of those little, bobbing men, that always have such shiny dickies and collars, and such bright boots, and such tight straps. And he's rich—and perfectly wild about me. He wouldn't take no for an answer, you know; so I just said yes, to have a little quiet. Besides, he is very convenient about the opera and concerts, and such things."

"Well, and the next?"

"Well, the next is George Emmons. He's one of your pink-and-white men, you know, who look like cream-candy, as if they were good to eat. He's a lawyer, of a good family,—thought a good deal of, and all that. Well, really, they say he has talents—I'm no judge. I know he always bores me to death; asking me if I have read this or that—marking places in books that I never read. He's your sentimental sort—writes the most romantic notes on pink paper, and all that sort of thing."

"And the third?"

"Well, you see, I don't like him a bit—I'm sure I don't. He's a hateful creature! He isn't handsome; he's proud as Lucifer; and I'm sure I don't know how he got me to be engaged. It was a kind of an accident. He's real good, though—too good for me, that's a fact. But, then, I'm afraid of him a little."

"And his name?"

"Well, his name is Clayton—Mr. Edward Clayton, at your service. He's one of your high-and-mighty people—with such deep-set eyes—eyes that look as if they were in a cave—and such black hair! And his eyes have a desperate sort of sad look, sometimes—quite Byronic. He's tall, and rather loose-jointed—has beautiful teeth; his mouth, too, is—well, when he smiles, sometimes it really is quite fascinating; and then he's so different from other gentlemen! He's kind—but he don't care how he dresses; and wears the most horrid shoes. And, then, he isn't polite—he won't jump, you know, to pick up your thread or scissors; and sometimes he'll get into a brown study, and let you stand ten minutes before he thinks to give you a chair, and all such provoking things. He isn't a bit of a lady's man. Well, consequence is, as my lord won't court the girls, the girls all court my lord—that's the way, you know; and they seem to think it's such a feather in their cap to get attention from him—because, you know, he's horrid sensible. So, you see, that just set me out to see what I could do with him. Well, you see, I wouldn't court him;—and I plagued him, and laughed at him, and spited him, and got him gloriously wroth; and he said some spiteful things about me, and then I said some more about him, and we had a real up-and-down quarrel;—and then I took a penitent turn, you know, and just went gracefully down into the valley of humiliation—as we witches can; and it took wonderfully—brought my lord on to his knees before he knew what he was doing. Well, really, I don't know what was the matter, just then, but he spoke so earnest and strong that actually he got me to crying—hateful creature!—and I promised all sorts of things, you know—said altogether more than will bear thinking of."

"And are you corresponding with all these lovers, Miss Nina?"

"Yes—isn't it fun? Their letters, you know, can't speak. If they could, when they come rustling together in the bag, wouldn't there be a muss?"

"Miss Nina, I think you have given your heart to this last one."

"Oh, nonsense, Harry! Haven't got any heart!—don't care two pins for any of them! All I want is to have a good time. As to love, and all that, I don't believe I could love any of them; I should be tired to death of any of them in six weeks. I never liked anything that long."

"Miss Nina, you must excuse me, but I want to ask again, is it right to trifle with the feelings of gentlemen in this way?"

"Why not?—Isn't all fair in war? Don't they trifle with us girls, every chance they get—and sit up so pompous in their rooms, and smoke cigars, and talk us over, as if they only had to put out their finger and say, 'Come here,' to get any of us? I tell you, it's fun to bring them down!—Now, there's that horrid George Emmons—I tell you, if he didn't flirt all winter with Mary Stephens, and got everybody to laughing about her!—it was so evident, you see, that she liked him—she couldn't help showing it, poor little thing!—and then my lord would settle his collar, and say he hadn't quite made up his mind to take her, and all that. Well, I haven't made up my mind to take him, either—and so poor Emma is avenged. As to the old bach—that smooth-dicky man—you see, he can't be hurt; for his heart is rubbed as smooth and hard as his dicky, with falling in love and out again. He's been turned off by three girls, now; and his shoes squeak as brisk as ever, and he's just as jolly. You see, he didn't use to be so rich. Lately, he's come into a splendid property; so, if I don't take him, poor man, there are enough that would be glad of him."

"Well, then, but as to that other one?"

"What! my lord Lofty? Oh, he wants humbling!—it wouldn't hurt him, in the least, to be put down a little. He's good, too, and afflictions always improve good people. I believe I was made for a means of grace to 'em all."

"Miss Nina, what if all three of them should come at once—or even two of them?"

"What a droll idea! Wouldn't it be funny? Just to think of it! What a commotion! What a scene! It would really be vastly entertaining."

"Now, Miss Nina, I want to speak as a friend."

"No, you shan't! it is just what people say when they are going to say something disagreeable. I told Clayton, once for all, that I wouldn't have him speak as a friend to me."

"Pray, how does he take all this?"

"Take it! Why, just as he must. He cares a great deal more for me than I do for him." Here a slight little sigh escaped the fair speaker. "And I think it fun to shock him. You know he is one of the fatherly sort, who is always advising young girls. Let it be understood that his standard of female character is wonderfully high, and all that. And then, to think of his being tripped up before me!—it's too funny!" The little sprite here took off her opera-hat, and commenced waltzing a few steps, and, stopping midwhirl, exclaimed: "Oh, do you know we girls have been trying to learn the cachucha, and I've got some castanets? Let me see—where are they?" And with this she proceeded to upset the trunk, from which flew a meteoric shower of bracelets, billets-doux, French Grammars, drawing-pencils, interspersed with confectionery of various descriptions, and all the et ceteras of a school-girl's depository. "There, upon my word, there are the bills you were asking for. There, take them!" throwing a package of papers at the young man. "Take them! Can you catch?"

"Miss Nina, these do not appear to be bills."

"Oh, bless me! those are love-letters, then. The bills are somewhere." And the little hands went pawing among the heap making the fanciful collection fly in every direction over the carpet. "Ah! I believe now in this bonbon-box I did put them. Take care of your head, Harry!" And, with the word, the gilded missile flew from the little hand, and opening on the way, showered Harry with a profusion of crumpled papers. "Now you have got them all, except one, that I used for curl-papers the other night. Oh, don't look so sober about it! Indeed, I kept the pieces—here they are. And now don't you say, Harry, don't you tell me that I never save my bills. You don't know how particular I have been, and what trouble I have taken. But, there—there's a letter Clayton wrote to me, one time when we had a quarrel. Just a specimen of that creature!"

"Pray tell us about it, Miss Nina," said the young man, with his eyes fixed admiringly on the little person, while he was smoothing and arranging the crumpled documents.

"Why, you see, it was just this way. You know, these men—how provoking they are! They'll go and read all sorts of books—no matter what they read!—and then they are so dreadfully particular about us girls. Do you know, Harry, this always made me angry?"

"Well, so, you see, one evening Sophy Elliot quoted some poetry from Don Juan,—I never read it, but it seems folks call it a bad book,—and my lord Clayton immediately fixed his eyes upon her in such an appalling way, and says, 'Have you read Don Juan, Miss Elliot?' Then, you know, as girls always do in such cases, she blushed and stammered, and said her brother had read some extracts from it to her. I was vexed, and said, 'And, pray, what's the harm if she did read it? I mean to read it, the very first chance I get!'

"Oh! everybody looked so shocked. Why, dear me! if I had said I was going to commit murder, Clayton could not have looked more concerned. So he put on that very edifying air of his, and said, 'Miss Nina, I trust, as your friend, that you will not read that book. I should lose all respect for a lady friend who had read that.'

"'Have you read it, Mr. Clayton?' said I.

"'Yes, Miss Nina,' said he, quite piously.

"'What makes you read such bad books?' said I, very innocently.

"Then there followed a general fuss and talk; and the gentlemen, you know, would not have their wives or their sisters read anything naughty, for the world. They wanted us all to be like snow-flakes, and all that. And they were quite high, telling they wouldn't marry this, and they wouldn't marry that, till at last I made them a curtsey, and said, 'Gentlemen, we ladies are infinitely obliged to you, but we don't intend to marry people that read naughty books, either. Of course you know snow-flakes don't like smut!'

"Now, I really didn't mean anything by it, except to put down these men, and stand up for my sex. But Clayton took it in real earnest. He grew red and grew pale, and was just as angry as he could be. Well, the quarrel raged about three days. Then, do you know, I made him give up, and own that he was in the wrong. There, I think he was, too,—don't you? Don't you think men ought to be as good as we are, any way?"

"Miss Nina, I should think you would be afraid to express yourself so positively."

"Oh, if I cared a sou for any of them, perhaps I should. But there isn't one of the train that I would give that for!" said she, flirting a shower of peanut-shells into the air.

"Yes, but, Miss Nina, some time or other you must marry somebody. You need somebody to take care of the property and place."

"Oh, that's it, is it? You are tired of keeping accounts, are you, with me to spend the money? Well, I don't wonder. How I pity anybody that keeps accounts! Isn't it horrid, Harry? Those awful books! Do you know that Mme. Ardaine set out that 'we girls' should keep account of our expenses? I just tried it two weeks. I had a headache and weak eyes, and actually it nearly ruined my constitution. Somehow or other, they gave it up, it gave them so much trouble. And what's the use? When money's spent, it's spent; and keeping accounts ever so strict won't get it back. I am very careful about my expenses. I never get anything that I can do without."

"For instance," said Harry, rather roguishly, "this bill of one hundred dollars for confectionery."

"Well, you know just how it is, Harry. It's so horrid to have to study! Girls must have something. And you know I didn't get it all for myself; I gave it round to all the girls. Then they used to ask me for it, and I couldn't refuse—and so it went."

"I didn't presume to comment, Miss Nina. What have we here?—Mme. Les Cartes, $450?"

"Oh, Harry, that horrid Mme. Les Cartes! You never saw anything like her! Positively it is not my fault. She puts down things I never got: I know she does. Nothing in the world but because she is from Paris. Everybody is complaining of her. But, then, nobody gets anything anywhere else. So what can one do, you know? I assure you, Harry, I am economical."

The young man, who had been summing up the accounts, now burst out into such a hearty laugh as somewhat disconcerted the fair rhetorician.

She colored to her temples.

"Harry, now, for shame! Positively, you aren't respectful!"

"Oh, Miss Nina, on my knees I beg pardon!" still continuing to laugh; "but, indeed, you must excuse me. I am positively delighted to hear of your economy, Miss Nina."

"Well, now, Harry, you may look at the bills and see. Haven't I ripped up all my silk dresses and had them colored over, just to economize? You can see the dyer's bill, there; and Mme. Carteau told me she always expected to turn my dresses twice, at least. Oh, yes, I have been very economical."

"I have heard of old dresses turned costing more than new ones, Miss Nina."

"Oh, nonsense, Harry! What should you know of girls' things? But I'll tell you one thing I've got, Harry, and that is a gold watch for you. There it is," throwing a case carelessly towards him; "and there's a silk dress for your wife," throwing him a little parcel. "I have sense enough to know what a good fellow you are, at any rate. I couldn't go on as I do, if you didn't rack your poor head fifty ways to keep things going straight here at home for me."

A host of conflicting emotions seemed to cross the young man's face, like a shadow of clouds over a field, as he silently undid the packages. His hands trembled, his lips quivered, but he said nothing.

"Come, Harry, don't this suit you? I thought it would."

"Miss Nina, you are too kind."

"No, I'm not, Harry; I am a selfish little concern, that's a fact," said she, turning away, and pretending not to see the feeling which agitated him.

"But, Harry, wasn't it droll, this morning, when all our people came up to get their presents! There was Aunt Sue, and Aunt Tike, and Aunt Kate, each one got a new sack pattern, in which they are going to make up the prints I brought them. In about two days our place will be flaming with aprons and sacks. And did you see Aunt Rose in that pink bonnet, with the flowers? You could see every tooth in her head! Of course, now they'll be taken with a very pious streak, to go to some camp-meeting or other, to show their finery. Why don't you laugh, Harry?"

"I do, don't I, Miss Nina?"

"You only laugh on your face. You don't laugh deep down. What's the matter? I don't believe it's good for you to read and study so much. Papa used to say that he didn't think it was good for"—

She stopped, checked by the expression on the face of her listener.

"For servants, Miss Nina, your papa said, I suppose."

With the quick tact of her sex, Nina perceived that she had struck some disagreeable chord in the mind of her faithful attendant, and she hastened to change the subject, in her careless, rattling way.

"Why, yes, Harry, study is horrid for you, or me either, or anybody else, except musty old people, who don't know how to do anything else. Did ever anybody look out of doors, such a pleasant day as this, and want to study? Think of a bird's studying, now, or a bee! They don't study—they live. Now, I don't want to study—I want to live. So now, Harry, if you'll just get the ponies and go in the woods, I want to get some jessamines, and spring beauties, and wild honeysuckles, and all the rest of the flowers that I used to get before I went to school."

CHAPTER II. CLAYTON.

The curtain rises on our next scene, and discovers a tranquil library, illuminated by the slant rays of the afternoon's sun. On one side the room opened by long glass windows on to a garden, from whence the air came in perfumed with the breath of roses and honeysuckles. The floor covered with white matting, the couches and sofas robed in smooth glazed linen, gave an air of freshness and coolness to the apartment. The walls were hung with prints of the great masterpieces of European art, while bronzes and plaster-casts, distributed with taste and skill, gave evidence of artistic culture in the general arrangement. Two young men were sitting together near the opened window at a small table, which displayed an antique coffee-set of silver, and a silver tray of ices and fruits. One of these has already been introduced to the notice of our readers, in the description of our heroine in the last chapter.

Edward Clayton, the only son of Judge Clayton, and representative of one of the oldest and most distinguished families of North Carolina, was in personal appearance much what our lively young friend had sketched—tall, slender, with a sort of loose-jointedness and carelessness of dress, which might have produced an impression of clownishness, had it not been relieved by a refined and intellectual expression on the head and face. The upper part of the face gave the impression of thoughtfulness and strength, with a shadowing of melancholy earnestness, and there was about the eye, in conversation, that occasional gleam of troubled wildness which betrays the hypochondriac temperament. The mouth was even feminine in the delicacy and beauty of its lines, and the smile which sometimes played around it had a peculiar fascination. It seemed to be a smile of but half the man's nature; for it never rose as high as the eyes, or seemed to disturb the dark stillness of their thoughtfulness.

The other speaker was in many respects a contrast; and we will introduce him to our readers by the name of Frank Russel. Furthermore, for their benefit, we will premise that he was the only son of a once distinguished and wealthy, but now almost decayed, family of Virginia.

It is supposed by many that friendship is best founded upon similarity of nature; but observation teaches that it is more common by a union of opposites, in which each party is attracted by something wanting in itself. In Clayton, the great preponderance of those faculties which draw a man inward, and impair the efficiency of the outward life, inclined him to overvalue the active and practical faculties, because he saw them constantly attended with a kind of success which he fully appreciated, but was unable to attain. Perfect ease of manner, ready presence of mind under all social exigencies, adroitness in making the most of passing occurrences, are qualities which are seldom the gift of sensitive and deeply-thoughtful natures, and which for this very reason they are often disposed to overvalue. Russel was one of those men who have just enough of all the higher faculties to appreciate their existence in others, and not enough of any one to disturb the perfect availability of his own mind. Everything in his mental furnishing was always completely under his own control, and on hand for use at a moment's notice. From infancy he was noted for quick tact and ready reply. At school he was the universal factotum, the "good fellow" of the ring, heading all the mischief among the boys, and yet walking with exemplary gravity on the blind side of the master. Many a scrape had he rescued Clayton from, into which he had fallen from a more fastidious moral sense, a more scrupulous honor, than is for worldly profit either in the boy's or man's sphere; and Clayton, superior as he was, could not help loving and depending on him.

The diviner part of man is often shamefaced and self-distrustful, ill at home in this world, and standing in awe of nothing so much as what is called common sense; and yet common sense very often, by its own keenness, is able to see that these unavailable currencies of another's mind are of more worth, if the world only knew it, than the ready coin of its own; and so the practical and the ideal nature are drawn together.

So Clayton and Russel had been friends from boyhood; had roomed together their four years in college; and, though instruments of a vastly different quality, had hitherto played the concerts of life with scarce a discord.

In person, Russel was of about the medium size, with a well-knit, elastic frame, all whose movements were characterized by sprightliness and energy. He had a frank, open countenance, clear blue eyes, a high forehead shaded by clusters of curling brown hair; his flexible lips wore a good-natured yet half-sarcastic smile. His feelings, though not inconveniently deep, were easily touched; he could be moved to tears or to smiles, with the varying humor of a friend; but never so far as to lose his equipoise—or, as he phrased it, forget what he was about.

But we linger too long in description. We had better let the reader hear the dramatis personæ, and judge for himself.

"Well, now, Clayton," said Russel, as he leaned back in a stuffed leather chair, with a cigar between his fingers, "how considerate of them to go off on that marooning party, and leave us to ourselves, here! I say, old boy, how goes the world now?—Reading law, hey?—booked to be Judge Clayton the second! Now, my dear fellow, if I had the opportunities that you have—only to step into my father's shoes—I should be a lucky fellow."

"Well, you are welcome to all my chances," said Clayton, throwing himself on one of the lounges; "for I begin to see that I shall make very little of them."

"Why, what's the matter?—Don't you like the study?"

"The study, perhaps, well enough—but not the practice. Reading the theory is always magnificent and grand. 'Law hath her seat in the bosom of God; her voice is the harmony of the world.' You remember we used to declaim that. But, then, come to the practice of it, and what do you find? Are legal examinations anything like searching after truth? Does not an advocate commit himself to one-sided views of his subject, and habitually ignore all the truth on the other side? Why, if I practised law according to my conscience, I should be chased out of court in a week."

"There you are, again, Clayton, with your everlasting conscience, which has been my plague ever since you were a boy, and I have never been able to convince you what a humbug it is! It's what I call a crotchety conscience—always in the way of your doing anything like anybody else. I suppose, then, of course, you won't go into political life.—Great pity, too. You'd make a very imposing figure as senator. You have exactly the cut for a conscript father—one of the old Viri Romæ."

"And what do you think the old Viri Romæ would do in Washington? What sort of a figure do you think Regulus, or Quintus Curtius, or Mucius Scævola, would make there?"

"Well, to be sure, the style of political action has altered somewhat since those days. If political duties were what they were then,—if a gulf would open in Washington, for example,—you would be the fellow to plunge in, horse and all, for the good of the republic; or, if anything was to be done by putting your right hand in the fire and burning it off—or, if there were any Carthaginians who would cut off your eyelids, or roll you down hill in a barrel of nails, for truth and your country's sake,—you would be on hand for any such matter. That's the sort of foreign embassy that you would be after. All these old-fashioned goings on would suit you to a T; but as to figuring in purple and fine linen, in Paris or London, as American minister, you would make a dismal business of it. But still, I thought you might practise law in a wholesome, sensible way,—take fees, make pleas with abundance of classical allusions, show off your scholarship, marry a rich wife, and make your children princes in the gates—all without treading on the toes of your too sensitive moral what-d'-ye-call-ems. But you've done one thing like other folks, at least, if all 's true that I've heard."

"And what is that, pray?"

"What's that? Hear the fellow, now! How innocent we are! I suppose you think I haven't heard of your campaign in New York—carrying off that princess of little flirts, Miss Gordon."

Clayton responded to the charge only with a slight shrug and a smile, in which not only his lips but his eyes took part, while the color mounted to his forehead.

"Now, do you know, Clayton," continued Russel, "I like that. Do you know I always thought I should detest the woman that you should fall in love with? It seemed to me that such a portentous combination of all the virtues as you were planning for would be something like a comet—an alarming spectacle. Do you remember (I should like to know, if you do) just what that woman was to be?—was to have all the learning of a man, all the graces of a woman (I think I have it by heart); she was to be practical, poetical, pious, and everything else that begins with a p; she was to be elegant and earnest; take deep and extensive views of life; and there was to be a certain air about her, half Madonna, half Venus, made of every creature's best. Ah, bless us! what poor creatures we are! Here comes along our little coquette, flirting, tossing her fan; picks you up like a great solid chip, as you are, and throws you into her chip-basket of beaux, and goes on dancing and flirting as before. Aren't you ashamed of it, now?"

"No. I am really much like the minister in our town, where we fitted for college, who married a pretty Polly Peters in his sixtieth year, and, when the elders came to inquire if she had the requisite qualifications for a pastor's lady, he told them that he didn't think she had. 'But the fact is, brethren,' said he, 'though I don't pretend she is a saint, she is a very pretty little sinner, and I love her.' That's just my case."

"Very sensibly said; and, do you know, as I told you before, I'm perfectly delighted with it, because it is acting like other folks. But then, my dear fellow, do you think you have come to anything really solid with this little Venus of the sea-foam? Isn't it much the same as being engaged to a cloud, or a butterfly? One wants a little streak of reality about a person that one must take for better or for worse. You have a deep nature, Clayton. You really want a wife who will have some glimmering perception of the difference between you and the other things that walk and wear coats, and are called men."

"Well, then, really," said Clayton, rousing himself, and speaking with energy, "I'll tell you just what it is: Nina Gordon is a flirt and a coquette—a spoiled child, if you will. She is not at all the person I ever expected would obtain any power over me. She has no culture, no reading, no habits of reflection; but she has, after all, a certain tone and quality to her, a certain 'timbre,' as the French say of voices, which suits me. There is about her a mixture of energy, individuality, and shrewdness, which makes her, all uninformed as she is, more piquant and attractive than any woman I ever fell in with. She never reads; it is almost impossible to get her to read; but, if you can catch her ear for five minutes, her literary judgments have a peculiar freshness and truth. And so with her judgment on all other subjects, if you can stop her long enough to give you an opinion. As to heart, I think she has yet a wholly unawakened nature. She has lived only in the world of sensation, and that is so abundant and so buoyant in her that the deeper part still sleeps. It is only two or three times that I have seen a flash of this under nature look from her eyes, and color her voice and intonation. And I believe—I'm quite sure—that I am the only person in the world that ever touched it at all. I'm not at all sure that she loves me now; but I'm almost equally sure that she will."

"They say," said Russel, carelessly, "that she is generally engaged to two or three at a time."

"That may be also," said Clayton, indolently. "I rather suspect it to be the case now, but it gives me no concern. I've seen all the men by whom she is surrounded, and I know perfectly well there's not one of them that she cares a rush for."

"Well, but, my dear fellow, how can your extra fastidious moral notions stand the idea of her practising this system of deception?"

"Why, of course, it isn't a thing to my taste; but then, like the old parson, if I love the 'little sinner,' what am I to do? I suppose you think it a lover's paradox; yet I assure you, though she deceives, she is not deceitful; though she acts selfishly, she is not selfish. The fact is, the child has grown up, motherless and an heiress, among servants. She has, I believe, a sort of an aunt, or some such relative, who nominally represents the head of the family to the eye of the world. But I fancy little madam has had full sway. Then she has been to a fashionable New York boarding-school, and that has developed the talent of shirking lessons, and evading rules, with a taste for sidewalk flirtation. These are all the attainments that I ever heard of being got at a fashionable boarding-school, unless it be a hatred of books, and a general dread of literary culture."

"And her estates are"—

"Nothing very considerable. Managed nominally by an old uncle of hers; really by a very clever quadroon servant, who was left her by her father, and who has received an education, and has talents very superior to what are common to those in his class. He is, in fact, the overseer of her plantation, and I believe the most loyal, devoted creature breathing."

"Clayton," said his companion, "this affair might not be much to one who takes the world as I do, but for you it may be a little too serious. Don't get in beyond your depth."

"You are too late, Russel, for that—I am in."

"Well, then, good luck to you, my dear fellow! And now, as we are about it, I may as well tell you that I'm in for it, too. I suppose you have heard of Miss Benoir, of Baltimore. Well, she is my fate."

"And are you really engaged?"

"All signed and sealed, and to be delivered next Christmas."

"Let's hear about her."

"Well, she is of a good height (I always said I shouldn't marry a short woman),—not handsome, but reasonably well-looking—very fine manners—knows the world—plays and sings handsomely—has a snug little fortune. Now, you know I never held to marrying for money and nothing else; but then, as I'm situated, I could not have fallen in love without that requisite. Some people call this heartless. I don't think it is. If I had met Mary Benoir, and had known that she hadn't anything, why, I should have known that it wouldn't do for me at all to cultivate any particular intimacy; but, knowing she had fortune, I looked a little further, and found she had other things too. Now, if that's marrying for money, so be it. Yours, Clayton, is a genuine case of falling in love. But, as for me, I walked in with my eyes wide open."

"And what are you going to do with yourself in the world, Russel?"

"I must get into practice, and get some foothold there, you know; and then, hey for Washington!—I'm to be president, like every other adventurer in these United States. Why not I, as well as another man?"

"I don't know, certainly," said Clayton, "if you want it, and are willing to work hard enough and long enough, and pay all the price. I would as soon spend my life walking the drawn sword which they say is the bridge to Mahomet's paradise."

"Ah! ah! I fancy I see you doing it! What a figure you'd make, my dear fellow, balancing and posturing on the sword-blade, and making horrid wry faces! Yet I know you'd be as comfortable there as you would in political life. And yet, after all, you are greatly superior to me in every respect. It would be a thousand pities if such a man as you couldn't have the management of things. But our national ship has to be navigated by second-rate fellows, Jerry-go-nimbles, like me, simply because we are good in dodging and turning. But that's the way. Sharp's the word, and the sharpest wins."

"For my part," said Clayton, "I shall never be what the world calls a successful man. There seems to be one inscription written over every passage of success in life, as far as I've seen,—'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'"

"I don't understand you, Clayton."

"Why, it seems to me just this. As matters are going on now in our country, I must either lower my standard of right and honor, and sear my soul in all its nobler sensibilities, or I must be what the world calls an unsuccessful man. There is no path in life, that I know of, where humbuggery and fraud and deceit are not essential to success,—none where a man can make the purity of his moral nature the first object. I see Satan standing in every avenue, saying, 'All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.'"

"Why don't you take to the ministry, then, Clayton, at once, and put up a pulpit-cushion and big Bible between you and the fiery darts of the devil?"

"I'm afraid I should meet him there, too. I could not gain a right to speak in any pulpit without some profession or pledge to speak this or that, that would be a snare to my conscience by and by. At the door of every pulpit I must swear always to find truth in a certain formula; and living, prosperity, success, reputation, will all be pledged on my finding it there. I tell you I should, if I followed my own conscience, preach myself out of pulpits quicker than I should plead out at the bar."

"Lord help you, Clayton! What will you do? Will you settle down on your plantation, and raise cotton and sell niggers? I'm expecting to hear, every minute, that you've subscribed for the 'Liberator,' and are going to turn Abolitionist."

"I do mean to settle down on my plantation, but not to raise cotton or negroes as a chief end of man. I do take the 'Liberator,' because I'm a free man, and have a right to take what I have a mind to. I don't agree with Garrison, because I think I know more about the matter, where I stand, than he does, or can, where he stands. But it's his right, as an honest man, to say what he thinks; and I should use it in his place. If I saw things as he does, I should be an Abolitionist. But I don't."

"That's a mercy, at least," said Russel, "to a man with your taste for martyrdom. But what are you going to do?"

"What any Christian man should do who finds four hundred odd of his fellow men and women placed in a state of absolute dependence on him. I'm going to educate and fit them for freedom. There isn't a sublimer power on earth than God has given to us, masters. The law gives us absolute and unlimited control. A plantation such as a plantation might be would be 'a light to lighten the Gentiles.' There is a wonderful and beautiful development locked up in this Ethiopian race, and it is worth being a life-object to unlock it. The raising of cotton is to be the least of the thing. I regard my plantation as a sphere for raising men and women, and demonstrating the capabilities of a race."

"Selah!" said Russel.

Clayton looked angry.

"I beg your pardon, Clayton. This is all superb, sublime! There is just one objection to it—it is wholly impossible."

"Every good and great thing has been called impossible before it is done."

"Well, let me tell you, Clayton, just how it will be. You will be a mark for arrows, both sides. You will offend all your neighbors by doing better than they do. You will bring your negroes up to a point in which they will meet the current of the whole community against them, and meanwhile you will get no credit with the Abolitionists. They will call you a cutthroat, pirate, sheep-stealer, and all the rest of their elegant little list of embellishments, all the same. You'll get a state of things that nobody can manage but yourself, and you by the hardest; and then you'll die, and it'll all run to the devil faster than you run it up. Now, if you would do the thing by halves, it wouldn't be so bad; but I know you of old. You won't be satisfied with teaching a catechism and a few hymns, parrot-wise, which I think is a respectable religious amusement for our women. You'll teach 'em all to read, and write, and think, and speak. I shouldn't wonder to hear of an importation of black-boards and spelling-books. You'll want a lyceum and debating society. Pray, what does sister Anne say to all this? Anne is a sensible girl now, but I'll warrant you've got her to go in for it."

"Anne is as much interested as I, but her practical tact is greater than mine, and she is of use in detecting difficulties that I do not see. I have an excellent man, who enters fully into my views, who takes charge of the business interests of the plantation, instead of one of these scoundrel overseers. There is to be a graduated system of work and wages introduced—a system that shall teach the nature and rights of property and train to habits of industry and frugality, by making every man's acquirements equal to his industry and good conduct."

"And what sort of a support do you expect to make out of all this? Are you going to live for them, or they for you?"

"I shall set them the example of living for them, and trust to awaken the good that is in them, in return. The strong ought to live for the weak—the cultivated for the ignorant."

"Well, Clayton, the Lord help you! I'm in earnest now—fact! Though I know you won't do it, yet I wish you could. It's a pity, Clayton, you were born in this world. It isn't you, but our planet and planetary ways, that are in fault. Your mind is a splendid storehouse—gold and gems of Ophir—but they are all up in the fifth story, and no staircase to get 'em down into common life. Now I've just enough appreciation of the sort of thing that's in you, not to laugh at you. Nine out of ten would. To tell you the truth, if I were already set up in life, and had as definite a position as you have,—family, friends, influence, and means,—why, perhaps I might afford to cultivate this style of thing. But I tell you what it is, Clayton, such a conscience as yours is cursedly expensive to keep. It's like a carriage—a fellow mustn't set it up unless he can afford it. It's one of the luxuries."

"It's a necessary of life, with me," said Clayton, dryly.

"Well, that's your nature. I can't afford it. I've got my way to make. I must succeed, and with your ultra notions I couldn't succeed. So there it is. After all, I can be as religious as dozens of your most respectable men, who have taken their seats in the night-train for Paradise, and keep the daylight for their own business."

"I dare say you can."

"Yes, and I shall get all I aim at; and you, Clayton, will be always an unhappy, dissatisfied aspirant after something too high for mortality. There's just the difference between us."

The conversation was here interrupted by the return of the family party.

CHAPTER III. THE CLAYTON FAMILY AND SISTER ANNE.

The family party, which was now ushered in, consisted of Clayton's father, mother, and sister. Judge Clayton was a tall, dignified, elderly personage, in whom one recognized, at a glance, the gentleman of the old school. His hair, snowy white, formed a singular contrast with the brightness of his blue eyes, whose peculiar acuteness of glance might remind one of a falcon. There was something stately in the position of the head and the carriage of the figure, and a punctilious exactness in the whole air and manner, that gave one a slight impression of sternness. The clear, sharp blue of his eye seemed to be that of a calm and decided intellect, of a logical severity of thought; and contrasted with the silvery hair with that same expression of cold beauty that is given by the contrast of snow mountains cutting into the keen, metallic blue of an Alpine sky. One should apprehend much to fear from such a man's reason—little to hope from any outburst of his emotional nature. Yet, as a man, perhaps injustice was done to Judge Clayton by this first impression; for there was, deep beneath this external coldness, a severely-repressed nature, of the most fiery and passionate vehemence. His family affections were strong and tender, seldom manifested in words, but always by the most exact appreciation and consideration for all who came within his sphere. He was strictly and impartially just in all the little minutiæ of social and domestic life, never hesitating to speak a truth or acknowledge an error.

Mrs. Clayton was a high-bred, elderly lady, whose well-preserved delicacy of complexion, brilliant dark eyes, and fine figure, spoke of a youth of beauty. Of a nature imaginative, impulsive, and ardent, inclining constantly to generous extremes, she had thrown herself with passionate devotion round her clear-judging husband, as the Alpine rose girdles with beauty the breast of the bright, pure glacier.

Between Clayton and his father there existed an affection deep and entire; yet, as the son developed to manhood, it became increasingly evident that they could never move harmoniously in the same practical orbit. The nature of the son was so veined and crossed with that of the mother, that the father, in attempting the age-long and often-tried experiment of making his child an exact copy of himself, found himself extremely puzzled and confused in the operation. Clayton was ideal to an excess; ideality colored every faculty of his mind, and swayed all his reasonings, as an unseen magnet will swerve the needle. Ideality pervaded his conscientiousness, urging him always to rise above the commonly-received and so-called practical in morals. Hence, while he worshipped the theory of law, the practice filled him with disgust; and his father was obliged constantly to point out deficiencies in reasonings, founded more on a keen appreciation of what things ought to be, than on a practical regard to what they are. Nevertheless, Clayton partook enough of his father's strong and steady nature to be his mother's idol, who, perhaps, loved this second rendering of the parental nature with even more doting tenderness than the first.

Anne Clayton was the eldest of three sisters, and the special companion and confidant of the brother; and, as she stands there untying her bonnet-strings, we must also present her to the reader. She is a little above the medium height, with that breadth and full development of chest which one admires in English women. She carries her well-formed head on her graceful shoulders with a positive, decided air, only a little on this side of haughtiness. Her clear brown complexion reddens into a fine glow in the cheek, giving one the impression of sound, perfect health. The positive outline of the small aquiline nose; the large, frank, well-formed mouth, with its clear rows of shining teeth; the brown eyes, which have caught something of the falcon keenness of the father, are points in the picture by no means to be overlooked. Taking her air altogether, there was an honest frankness about her which encouraged conversation, and put one instantly at ease. Yet no man in his senses could ever venture to take the slightest liberty with Anne Clayton. With all her frankness, there was ever in her manner a perfectly-defined "thus far shalt thou come, and no further." Beaux, suitors, lovers in abundance, had stood, knelt, and sighed protesting, at her shrine. Yet Anne Clayton was twenty-seven, and unmarried. Everybody wondered why; and as to that, we can only wonder with the rest. Her own account of the matter was simple and positive. She did not wish to marry—was happy enough without.

The intimacy between the brother and sister had been more than usually strong, notwithstanding marked differences of character; for Anne had not a particle of ideality. Sense she had, shrewdness, and a pleasant dash of humor withal; but she was eminently what people call a practical girl. She admired highly the contrary of all this in her brother; she delighted in the poetic-heroic element in him, for much the same reason that young ladies used to admire Thaddeus of Warsaw and William Wallace—because it was something quite out of her line. In the whole world of ideas she had an almost idolatrous veneration for her brother; in the sphere of practical operations she felt free to assert, with a certain good-natured positiveness, her own superiority. There was no one in the world, perhaps, of whose judgment in this respect Clayton stood more in awe.

At the present juncture of affairs Clayton felt himself rather awkwardly embarrassed in communicating to her an event which she would immediately feel she had a right to know before. A sister of Anne Clayton's positive character does not usually live twenty-seven years in constant intimacy with a brother like Clayton, without such an attachment as renders the first announcement of a contemplated marriage somewhat painful. Why, then, had Clayton, who always unreservedly corresponded with his sister, not kept her apprised of his gradual attachment to Nina? The secret of the matter was, that he had had an instinctive consciousness that he could not present Nina to the practical, clear-judging mind of his sister, as she appeared through the mist and spray of his imaginative nature. The hard facts of her case would be sure to tell against her in any communication he might make; and sensitive people never like the fatigue of justifying their instincts. Nothing, in fact, is less capable of being justified by technical reasons than those fine insights into character whereupon affection is built. We have all had experience of preferences which would not follow the most exactly ascertained catalogue of virtues, and would be made captive where there was very little to be said in justification of the captivity.

But, meanwhile, rumor, always busy, had not failed to convey to Anne Clayton some suspicions of what was passing; and, though her delicacy and pride forbade any allusion to it, she keenly felt the want of confidence, and of course was not any more charitably disposed towards the little rival for this reason. But now the matter had attained such a shape in Clayton's mind that he felt the necessity of apprising his family and friends. With his mother the task was made easier by the abundant hopefulness of her nature, which enabled her in a moment to throw herself into the sympathies of those she loved. To her had been deputed the office of first breaking the tidings to Anne, and she had accomplished it during the pleasure-party of the morning.

The first glance that passed between Clayton and his sister, as she entered the room, on her return from the party, showed him that she was discomposed and unhappy. She did not remain long in the apartment, or seem disposed to join in conversation; and, after a few abstracted moments, she passed through the open door into the garden, and began to busy herself apparently among her plants. Clayton followed her. He came and stood silently beside her for some time, watching her as she picked the dead leaves off her geranium.

"Mother has told you," he said, at length.

"Yes," said Anne.

There was a long pause, and Anne picked off dry leaves and green promiscuously, threatening to demolish the bush.

"Anne," said Clayton, "how I wish you could see her!"

"I've heard of her," replied Anne, dryly, "through the Livingstons."

"And what have you heard?" said Clayton, eagerly.

"Not such things as I could wish, Edward; not such as I expected to hear of the lady that you would choose."

"And, pray, what have you heard? Out with it," said Clayton,—"let's know what the world says of her."

"Well, the world says," said Anne, "that she is a coquette, a flirt, a jilt. From all I've heard, I should think she must be an unprincipled girl."

"That is hard language, Anne."

"Truth is generally hard," replied Anne.

"My dear sister," said Clayton, taking her hand, and seating her on the seat in the garden, "have you lost all faith in me?"

"I think it would be nearer truth," replied Anne, "to say that you had lost all faith in me. Why am I the last one to know all this? Why am I to hear it first from reports, and every way but from you? Would I have treated you so? Did I ever have anything that I did not tell you? Down to my very soul I've always told you everything!"

"This is true, I own, dear Anne; but what if you had loved some man that you felt sure I should not like? Now, you are a positive person, Anne, and this might happen. Would you want to tell me at once? Would you not, perhaps, wait, and hesitate, and put off, for one reason or another, from day to day, and find it grow more and more difficult, the longer you waited?"

"I can't tell," said Anne, bitterly. "I never did love any one better than you,—that's the trouble."

"Neither do I love anybody better than you, Anne. The love I have for you is a whole, perfect thing, just as it was. See if you do not find me every way as devoted. My heart was only opened to take in another love, another wholly different; and which, because it is so wholly different, never can infringe on the love I bear to you. And, Anne, my dear sister, if you could love her as a part of me"—

"I wish I could," said Anne, somewhat softened; "but what I've heard has been so unfavorable! She is not, in the least, the person I should have expected you to fancy, Edward. Of all things I despise a woman who trifles with the affections of gentlemen."

"Well, but, my dear, Nina isn't a woman; she is a child—a gay, beautiful, unformed child; and I'm sure you may apply to her what Pope says:—

'If to her share some female errors fall,

Look in her face, and you forget them all.'"

"Yes, indeed," said Anne, "I believe all you men are alike—a pretty face bewitches any of you. I thought you were an exception, Edward; but there you are."

"But, Anne, is this the way to encourage my confidence? Suppose I am bewitched and enchanted, you cannot disentangle me without indulgence. Say what you will about it, the fact is just this—it is my fate to love this child. I've tried to love many women before. I have seen many whom I knew no sort of reason why I shouldn't love,—handsomer far, more cultivated, more accomplished,—and yet I've seen them without a movement or a flutter of the pulse. But this girl has awakened all there is to me. I do not see in her what the world sees. I see the ideal image of what she can be, what I'm sure she will be, when her nature is fully awakened and developed."

"Just there, Edward—just that," said Anne. "You never see anything; that is, you see a glorified image—a something that might, could, would, or should be—that is your difficulty. You glorify an ordinary boarding-school coquette into something symbolic, sublime; you clothe her with all your own ideas, and then fall down to worship her."

"Well, my dear Anne, suppose it were so, what then? I am, as you say, ideal,—you, real. Well, be it so; I must act according to what is in me. I have a right to my nature, you to yours. But it is not every person whom I can idealize: and I suspect this is the great reason why I never could love some very fine women, with whom I have associated on intimate terms; they had no capacity of being idealized; they could receive no color from my fancy; they wanted, in short, just what Nina has. She is just like one of those little whisking, chattering cascades in the White Mountains, and the atmosphere round her is favorable to rainbows."

"And you always see her through them."

"Even so, sister; but some people I cannot. Why should you find fault with me? It's a pleasant thing to look through a rainbow. Why should you seek to disenchant, if I can be enchanted?"

"Why," replied Anne, "you remember the man who took his pay of the fairies in gold and diamonds, and, after he had passed a certain brook, found it all turned to slate-stones. Now, marriage is like that brook: many a poor fellow finds his diamonds turned to slate on the other side; and this is why I put in my plain, hard common sense, against your visions. I see the plain facts about this young girl; that she is an acknowledged flirt, a noted coquette and jilt; and a woman who is so is necessarily heartless; and you are too good, Edward, too noble, I have loved you too long, to be willing to give you up to such a woman."

"There, my dear Anne, there are at least a dozen points in that sentence to which I don't agree. In the first place, as to coquetry, it isn't the unpardonable sin in my eyes—that is, under some circumstances."

"That is, you mean, when Nina Gordon is the coquette?"

"No, I don't mean that. But the fact is, Anne, there is so little of true sincerity, so little real benevolence and charity, in the common intercourse of young gentlemen and ladies in society, and our sex, who ought to set the example, are so selfish and unprincipled in their ways of treating women, that I do not wonder that, now and then, a lively girl, who has the power, avenges her sex by playing off our weak points. Now, I don't think Nina capable of trifling with a real, deep, unselfish attachment—a love which sought her good, and was willing to sacrifice itself for her; but I don't believe any such has ever been put at her disposal. There's a great difference between a man's wanting a woman to love him, and loving her. Wanting to appropriate a woman as a wife does not, of course, imply that a man loves her, or that he is capable of loving anything. All these things girls feel, because their instincts are quick; and they are often accused of trifling with a man's heart, when they only see through him, and know he hasn't any. Besides, love of power has always been considered a respectable sin in us men; and why should we denounce a woman for loving her kind of power?"

"Oh, well, Edward, there isn't anything in the world that you cannot theorize into beauty. But I don't like coquettes, for all that; and, then, I'm told Nina Gordon is so very odd, and says and does such very extraordinary things, sometimes."

"Well, perhaps that charms me the more. In this conventional world, where women are all rubbed into one uniform surface, like coins in one's pocket, it's a pleasure now and then to find one who can't be made to do and think like all the rest. You have a little dash of this merit, yourself, Anne; but you must consider that you have been brought up with mamma, under her influence, trained and guided every hour, even more than you knew. Nina has grown up an heiress among servants, a boarding-school girl in New York; and, furthermore, you are twenty-seven and she is eighteen, and a great deal may be learned between eighteen and twenty-seven."

"But, brother, you remember Miss Hannah More says,—or some of those good women, I forget who: at any rate it's a sensible saying,—'that a man who chooses his wife as he would a picture in a public exhibition-room should remember that there is this difference, that the picture cannot go back to the exhibition, but the woman may.' You have chosen her from seeing her brilliancy in society; but, after all, can you make her happy in the dull routine of a commonplace life? Is she not one of the sort that must have a constant round of company and excitement to keep her in spirits?"

"I think not," said Clayton. "I think she is one of those whose vitality is in herself, and one whose freshness and originality will keep life anywhere from being commonplace; and that, living with us, she will sympathize, naturally, in all our pursuits."

"Well, now, don't flatter yourself, brother, that you can make this girl over, and bring her to any of your standards."

"Who—I? Did you think I meditated such an impertinence? The last thing I should try, to marry a wife to educate her! It's generally one of the most selfish tricks of our sex. Besides, I don't want a wife who will be a mere mirror of my opinions and sentiments. I don't want an innocent sheet of blotting-paper, meekly sucking up all I say, and giving a little fainter impression of my ideas. I want a wife for an alternative; all the vivacities of life lie in differences."

"Why, surely," said Anne, "one wants one's friends to be congenial, I should think."

"So we do; and there is nothing in the world so congenial as differences. To be sure, the differences must be harmonious. In music, now, for instance, one doesn't want a repetition of the same notes, but differing notes that chord. Nay, even discords are indispensable to complete harmony. Now, Nina has just that difference from me which chords with me; and all our little quarrels—for we have had a good many, and I dare say shall have more—are only a sort of chromatic passages,—discords of the seventh, leading into harmony. My life is inward, theorizing, self-absorbed. I am hypochondriac—often morbid. The vivacity and acuteness of her outer life makes her just what I need. She wakens, she rouses, and keeps me in play; and her quick instincts are often more than a match for my reason. I reverence the child, then, in spite of her faults. She has taught me many things."

"Well," said Anne, laughing, "I give you up, if it comes to that. If you come to talk about reverencing Nina Gordon, I see it's all over with you, Edward, and I'll be good-natured, and make the best of it. I hope it may all be true that you think, and a great deal more. At all events, no effort of mine shall be wanting to make you as happy in your new relation as you ought to be."

"There, now, that's Anne Clayton! It's just like you, sister, and I couldn't say anything better than that. You have unburdened your conscience, you have done all you can for me, and now very properly yield to the inevitation. Nina, I know, will love you; and, if you never try to advise her and influence her, you will influence her very much. Good people are a long while learning that, Anne. They think to do good to others, by interfering and advising. They don't know that all they have to do is to live. When I first knew Nina, I was silly enough to try my hand that way, myself; but I've learned better. Now, when Nina comes to us, all that you and mamma have got to do is just to be kind to her, and live as you always have lived; and whatever needs to be altered in her, she will alter herself."

"Well," said Anne, "I wish, as it is so, that I could see her."

"Suppose you write a few lines to her in this letter that I am going to write; and then that will lead in due time to a visit."

"Anything in the world, Edward, that you say."

CHAPTER IV. THE GORDON FAMILY.

A week or two had passed over the head of Nina Gordon since she was first introduced to our readers, and during this time she had become familiar with the details of her home life. Nominally, she stood at the head of her plantation, as mistress and queen in her own right of all, both in doors and out; but, really, she found herself, by her own youth and inexperience, her ignorance of practical details, very much in the hands of those she professed to govern.

The duties of a southern housekeeper, on a plantation, are onerous beyond any amount of northern conception. Every article wanted for daily consumption must be kept under lock and key, and doled out as need arises. For the most part, the servants are only grown-up children, without consideration, forethought, or self-control, quarrelling with each other, and divided into parties and factions, hopeless of any reasonable control. Every article of wear, for some hundreds of people, must be thought of, purchased, cut and made, under the direction of the mistress; and add to this the care of young children, whose childish mothers are totally unfit to govern or care for them, and we have some slight idea of what devolves on southern housekeepers.

Our reader has seen what Nina was on her return from New York, and can easily imagine that she had no idea of embracing, in good earnest, the hard duties of such a life.

In fact, since the death of Nina's mother, the situation of the mistress of the family had been only nominally filled by her aunt, Mrs. Nesbit. The real housekeeper, in fact, was an old mulatto woman, named Katy, who had been trained by Nina's mother. Notwithstanding the general inefficiency and childishness of negro servants, there often are to be found among them those of great practical ability. Whenever owners, through necessity or from tact, select such servants, and subject them to the kind of training and responsibility which belongs to a state of freedom, the same qualities are developed which exist in free society. Nina's mother, being always in delicate health, had, from necessity, been obliged to commit much responsibility to "Aunt Katy," as she was called; and she had grown up under the discipline into a very efficient housekeeper. With her tall red turban, her jingling bunch of keys, and an abundant sense of the importance of her office, she was a dignitary not lightly to be disregarded.

It is true that she professed the utmost deference for her young mistress, and very generally passed the compliment of inquiring what she would have done; but it was pretty generally understood that her assent to Aunt Katy's propositions was considered as much a matter of course as the queen's to a ministerial recommendation. Indeed, had Nina chosen to demur, her prime minister had the power, without departing in the slightest degree from a respectful bearing, to involve her in labyrinths of perplexity without end. And as Nina hated trouble, and wanted, above all things, to have her time to herself for her own amusement, she wisely concluded not to interfere with Aunt Katy's reign, and to get by persuasion and coaxing, what the old body would have been far too consequential and opinionated to give to authority.

In like manner, at the head of all out-door affairs was the young quadroon, Harry, whom we introduced in the first chapter. In order to come fully at the relation in which he stood to the estate, we must, after the fashion of historians generally, go back a hundred years or so, in order to give our readers a fair start. Behold us, therefore, assuming historic dignity, as follows.

Among the first emigrants to Virginia, in its colonial days, was one Thomas Gordon, Knight, a distant offshoot of the noble Gordon family, renowned in Scottish history. Being a gentleman of some considerable energy, and impatient of the narrow limits of the Old World, where he found little opportunity to obtain that wealth which was necessary to meet the demands of his family pride, he struck off for himself into Virginia. Naturally of an adventurous turn, he was one of the first to propose the enterprise which afterwards resulted in a settlement on the banks of the Chowan River, in North Carolina. Here he took up for himself a large tract of the finest alluvial land, and set himself to the business of planting, with the energy and skill characteristic of his nation; and, as the soil was new and fertile, he soon received a very munificent return for his enterprise. Inspired with remembrances of old ancestral renown, the Gordon family transmitted in their descent all the traditions, feelings, and habits, which were the growth of the aristocratic caste from which they sprung. The name of Canema, given to the estate, came from an Indian guide and interpreter, who accompanied the first Colonel Gordon as confidential servant.

The estate, being entailed, passed down through the colonial times unbroken in the family, whose wealth, for some years, seemed to increase with every generation.

The family mansion was one of those fond reproductions of the architectural style of the landed gentry in England, in which, as far as their means could compass it, the planters were fond of indulging.

Carpenters and carvers had been brought over, at great expense, from the old country, to give the fruits of their skill in its erection; and it was a fancy of the ancestor who built it, to display, in its wood-work, that exuberance of new and rare woods with which the American continent was supposed to abound. He had made an adventurous voyage into South America, and brought from thence specimens of those materials more brilliant than rose-wood, and hard as ebony, which grow so profusely on the banks of the Amazon that the natives use them for timber. The floor of the central hall of the house was a curiously-inlaid parquet of these brilliant materials, arranged in fine block-work, highly polished.

The outside of the house was built in the old Virginian fashion, with two tiers of balconies running completely round, as being much better suited to the American climate than any of European mode. The inside, however, was decorated with sculpture and carvings, copied, many of them, from ancestral residences in Scotland, giving to the mansion an air of premature antiquity.

Here, for two or three generations, the Gordon family had lived in opulence. During the time, however, of Nina's father, and still more after his death, there appeared evidently on the place signs of that gradual decay which has conducted many an old Virginian family to poverty and ruin. Slave labor, of all others the most worthless and profitless, had exhausted the first vigor of the soil, and the proprietors gradually degenerated from those habits of energy which were called forth by the necessities of the first settlers, and everything proceeded with that free-and-easy abandon, in which both master and slave appeared to have one common object,—that of proving who should waste with most freedom.

At Colonel Gordon's death, he had bequeathed, as we have already shown, the whole family estate to his daughter, under the care of a servant, of whose uncommon intelligence and thorough devotion of heart he had the most ample proof. When it is reflected that the overseers are generally taken from a class of whites who are often lower in ignorance and barbarism than even the slaves, and that their wastefulness and rapacity are a by-word among the planters, it is no wonder that Colonel Gordon thought that, in leaving his plantation under the care of one so energetic, competent, and faithful, as Harry, he had made the best possible provision for his daughter.

Harry was the son of his master, and inherited much of the temper and constitution of his father, tempered by the soft and genial temperament of the beautiful Eboe mulattress, who was his mother. From this circumstance Harry had received advantages of education very superior to what commonly fell to the lot of his class. He had also accompanied his master as valet during the tour of Europe, and thus his opportunities of general observation had been still further enlarged, and that tact, by which those of the mixed blood seem so peculiarly fitted to appreciate all the finer aspects of conventional life had been called out and exercised; so that it would be difficult in any circle to meet with a more agreeable and gentlemanly person. In leaving a man of this character, and his own son, still in the bonds of slavery, Colonel Gordon was influenced by that passionate devotion to his daughter which with him overpowered every consideration. A man so cultivated, he argued to himself, might find many avenues opened to him in freedom; might be tempted to leave the estate to other hands, and seek his own fortune. He therefore resolved to leave him bound by an indissoluble tie for a term of years, trusting to his attachment to Nina to make this service tolerable.

Possessed of very uncommon judgment, firmness, and knowledge of human nature, Harry had found means to acquire great ascendency over the hands of the plantation, and, either through fear or through friendship, there was a universal subordination to him. The executors of the estate scarcely made even a feint of overseeing him; and he proceeded, to all intents and purposes, with the perfect ease of a free man. Everybody, for miles around, knew and respected him; and, had he not been possessed of a good share of the thoughtful, forecasting temperament derived from his Scottish parentage, he might have been completely happy, and forgotten even the existence of the chains whose weight he never felt.

It was only in the presence of Tom Gordon—Colonel Gordon's lawful son—that he ever realized that he was a slave. From childhood, there had been a rooted enmity between the brothers, which deepened as years passed on; and, as he found himself, on every return of the young man to the place, subjected to taunts and ill-usage, to which his defenceless position left him no power to reply, he had resolved never to marry, and lay the foundation for a family, until such time as he should be able to have the command of his own destiny, and that of his household. But the charms of a pretty French quadroon overcame the dictates of prudence.

The history of Tom Gordon is the history of many a young man grown up under the institutions and in the state of society which formed him. Nature had endowed him with no mean share of talent, and with that perilous quickness of nervous organization, which, like fire, is a good servant, but a bad master. Out of those elements, with due training, might have been formed an efficient and eloquent public man; but, brought up from childhood among servants to whom his infant will was law, indulged during the period of infantile beauty and grace in the full expression of every whim, growing into boyhood among slaves with but the average amount of plantation morality, his passions developed at a fearfully early time of life; and, before his father thought of seizing the reins of authority, they had gone out of his hands forever. Tutor after tutor was employed on the plantation to instruct him, and left, terrified by his temper. The secluded nature of the plantation left him without that healthful stimulus of society which is often a help in enabling a boy to come to the knowledge and control of himself. His associates were either the slaves, or the overseers, who are generally unprincipled and artful, or the surrounding whites, who lay in a yet lower deep of degradation. For one reason or another, it was for the interest of all these to flatter his vices and covertly to assist him in opposing and deceiving his parents. Thus an early age saw him an adept in every low form of vice. In despair, he was at length sent to an academy at the North, where he commenced his career on the first day by striking the teacher in the face, and was consequently expelled. Thence he went to another, where, learning caution from experience, he was enabled to maintain his foothold. There he was a successful colporteur and missionary in the way of introducing a knowledge of bowie-knives, revolvers, and vicious literature. Artful, bold, and daring, his residence for a year at a school was sufficient to initiate in the way of ruin perhaps one fourth of the boys. He was handsome, and, when not provoked, good-natured, and had that off-hand way of spending money which passes among boys for generosity. The simple sons of hard-working farmers, bred in habits of industry and frugality, were dazzled and astonished by the freedom with which he talked, and drank, and spit, and swore. He was a hero in their eye, and they began to wonder at the number of things, to them unknown before, which went to make up the necessaries of life. From school he was transferred to college, and there placed under the care of a professor, who was paid an exorbitant sum for overlooking his affairs. The consequence was, that while many a northern boy, whose father could not afford to pay for similar patronage, was disciplined, rusticated, or expelled, as the case might be, Tom Gordon exploited gloriously through college, getting drunk every week or two, breaking windows, smoking freshmen, heading various sprees in different parts of the country, and at last graduating nobody knew how, except the patron professor, who received an extra sum for the extra difficulties of the case. Returned home, he went into a lawyer's office in Raleigh, where, by a pleasant fiction, he was said to be reading law, because he was occasionally seen at the office during the intervals of his more serious avocations of gambling, and horse-racing, and drinking. His father, an affectionate but passionate man, was wholly unable to control him, and the conflicts between them often shook the whole domestic fabric. Nevertheless, to the last Colonel Gordon indulged the old hope for such cases made and provided, that Tom would get through sowing his wild oats, some time, and settle down and be a respectable man; in which hope he left him the half of his property. Since that time, Tom seemed to have studied on no subject except how to accelerate the growth of those wings which riches are said to be inclined to take, under the most favorable circumstances.

As often happens in such cases of utter ruin, Tom Gordon was a much worse character for all the elements of good which he possessed. He had sufficient perception of right, and sufficient conscience remaining, to make him bitter and uncomfortable. In proportion as he knew himself unworthy of his father's affection and trust, he became jealous and angry at any indications of the want of it. He had contracted a settled ill-will to his sister, for no other apparent reason except that the father took a comfort in her which he did not in him. From childhood, it was his habit to vex and annoy her in every possible way; and it was for this reason, among many others, that Harry had persuaded Mr. John Gordon, Nina's uncle and guardian, to place her at the New York boarding-school, where she acquired what is termed an education. After finishing her school career, she had been spending a few months in a family of a cousin of her mother's, and running with loose rein the career of fashionable gayety.

Luckily, she brought home with her unspoiled a genuine love of nature, which made the rural habits of plantation life agreeable to her. Neighbors there were few. Her uncle's plantation, five miles distant, was the nearest. Other families with whom the Gordons were in the habit of exchanging occasional visits were some ten or fifteen miles distant. It was Nina's delight, however, in her muslin wrapper and straw hat, to patter about over the plantation, to chat with the negroes among their cabins, amusing herself with the various drolleries and peculiarities to which long absence had given the zest of novelty. Then she would call for her pony, and, attended by Harry, or some of her servants, would career through the woods, gathering the wild-flowers with which they abound; perhaps stop for a day at her uncle's, have a chat and a romp with him, and return the next morning.

In the comparative solitude of her present life her mind began to clear itself of some former follies, as water when at rest deposits the sediment which clouded it. Apart from the crowd, and the world of gayeties which had dizzied her, she could not help admitting to herself the folly of much she had been doing. Something, doubtless, was added to this by the letters of Clayton. The tone of them, so manly and sincere, so respectful and kind, so removed either from adulation or sentimentalism, had an effect upon her greater than she was herself aware of. So Nina, in her positive and off-hand way, sat down, one day, and wrote farewell letters to both her other lovers, and felt herself quite relieved by the process.

A young person could scarce stand more entirely alone, as to sympathetic intercourse with relations, than Nina. It is true that the presence of her mother's sister in the family caused it to be said that she was residing under the care of an aunt.

Mrs. Nesbit, however, was simply one of those well-bred, well-dressed lay-figures, whose only office in life seems to be to occupy a certain room in a house, to sit in certain chairs at proper hours, to make certain remarks at suitable intervals of conversation. In her youth this lady had run quite a career as a belle and beauty. Nature had endowed her with a handsome face and figure, and youth and the pleasure of admiration for some years supplied a sufficient flow of animal spirits to make the beauty effective. Early married, she became the mother of several children, who were one by one swept into the grave. The death of her husband, last of all, left her with a very small fortune alone in the world; and, like many in similar circumstances, she was content to sink into an appendage to another's family.

Mrs. Nesbit considered herself very religious; and, as there is a great deal that passes for religion, ordinarily, of which she may be fairly considered a representative, we will present our readers with a philosophical analysis of the article. When young, she had thought only of self in the form of admiration, and the indulgence of her animal spirits. When married, she had thought of self only in her husband and children, whom she loved because they were hers, and for no other reason.

When death swept away her domestic circle, and time stole the beauty and freshness of animal spirits, her self-love took another form; and, perceiving that this world was becoming to her somewhat passé, she determined to make the best of her chance for another.

Religion she looked upon in the light of a ticket, which, being once purchased, and snugly laid away in a pocket-book, is to be produced at the celestial gate, and thus secure admission to heaven.

At a certain period of her life, while she deemed this ticket unpurchased, she was extremely low-spirited and gloomy, and went through a quantity of theological reading enough to have astonished herself, had she foreseen it in the days of her belleship. As the result of all, she at last presented herself as a candidate for admission to a Presbyterian church in the vicinity, there professing her determination to run the Christian race. By the Christian race, she understood going at certain stated times to religious meetings, reading the Bible and hymn-book at certain hours in the day, giving at regular intervals stipulated sums to religious charities, and preserving a general state of leaden indifference to everybody and everything in the world.

She thus fondly imagined that she had renounced the world, because she looked back with disgust on gayeties for which she had no longer strength or spirits. Nor did she dream that the intensity with which her mind travelled the narrow world of self, dwelling on the plaits of her caps, the cut of her stone-colored satin gowns, the making of her tea and her bed, and the saving of her narrow income, was exactly the same in kind, though far less agreeable in development, as that which once expended itself in dressing and dancing. Like many other apparently negative characters, she had a pertinacious intensity of an extremely narrow and aimless self-will. Her plans of life, small as they were, had a thousand crimps and plaits, to every one of which she adhered with invincible pertinacity. The poor lady little imagined, when she sat, with such punctilious satisfaction, while the Rev. Mr. Orthodoxy demonstrated that selfishness is the essence of all moral evil, that the sentiment had the slightest application to her; nor dreamed that the little, quiet, muddy current of self-will, which ran without noise or indecorum under the whole structure of her being, might be found, in a future day, to have undermined all her hopes of heaven. Of course, Mrs. Nesbit regarded Nina, and all other lively young people, with a kind of melancholy endurance—as shocking spectacles of worldliness. There was but little sympathy, to be sure, between the dashing, and out-spoken, and almost defiant little Nina, and the sombre silver-gray apparition which glided quietly about the wide halls of her paternal mansion. In fact, it seemed to afford the latter a mischievous pleasure to shock her respectable relative on all convenient occasions. Mrs. Nesbit felt it occasionally her duty, as she remarked, to call her lively niece into her apartment, and endeavor to persuade her to read some such volume as Law's Serious Call, or Owen on the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm; and to give her a general and solemn warning against all the vanities of the world, in which were generally included dressing in any color but black and drab, dancing, flirting, writing love-letters, and all other enormities, down to the eating of pea-nut candy. One of these scenes is just now enacting in this good lady's apartment, upon which we will raise the curtain.

Mrs. Nesbit, a diminutive, blue-eyed, fair-complexioned little woman, of some five feet high, sat gently swaying in that respectable asylum for American old age, commonly called a rocking-chair. Every rustle of her silvery silk gown, every fold of the snowy kerchief on her neck, every plait of her immaculate cap, spoke a soul long retired from this world and its cares. The bed, arranged with extremest precision, however, was covered with a mélange of French finery, flounces, laces, among which Nina kept up a continual agitation like that produced by a breeze in a flower-bed, as she unfolded, turned, and fluttered them, before the eyes of her relative.

"I have been through all this, Nina," said the latter, with a melancholy shake of her head, "and I know the vanity of it."

"Well, aunty, I haven't been through it, so I don't know."

"Yes, my dear, when I was of your age, I used to go to balls and parties, and could think of nothing but of dress and admiration. I have been through it all, and seen the vanity of it."

"Well, aunt, I want to go through it, and see the vanity of it too. That's just what I'm after. I'm on the way to be as sombre and solemn as you are, but I'm bound to have a good time first. Now, look at this pink brocade!"

Had the brocade been a pall, it could scarcely have been regarded with a more lugubrious aspect.

"Ah, child! such a dying world as this! To spend so much time and thought on dress!"

"Why, Aunt Nesbit, yesterday you spent just two whole hours in thinking whether you should turn the breadths of your black silk dress upside down, or down side up; and this was a dying world all the time. Now, I don't see that it is any better to think of black silk than it is of pink."

This was a view of the subject which seemed never to have occurred to the good lady.

"But now, aunt, do cheer up, and look at this box of artificial flowers. You know I thought I'd bring a stock on from New York. Now, aren't these perfectly lovely? I like flowers that mean something. Now, these are all imitations of natural flowers, so perfect that you'd scarcely know them from the real. See—there, that's a moss-rose; and now look at these sweet peas, you'd think they had just been picked; and, there—that heliotrope, and these jessamines, and those orange-blossoms, and that wax camelia"—

"Turn off my eyes from beholding vanity!" said Mrs. Nesbit, shutting her eyes, and shaking her head:—

"'What if we wear the richest vest,—

Peacocks and flies are better drest;

This flesh, with all its glorious forms,

Must drop to earth, and feed the worms.'"

"Aunt, I do think you have the most horrid, disgusting set of hymns, all about worms, and dust, and such things!"

"It's my duty, child, when I see you so much taken up with such sinful finery."

"Why, aunt, do you think artificial flowers are sinful?"

"Yes, dear; they are a sinful waste of time and money, and take off our mind from more important things."

"Well, aunt, then what did the Lord make sweet peas, and roses, and orange-blossoms for? I'm sure it's only doing as he does, to make flowers. He don't make everything gray, or stone-color. Now, if you only would come out in the garden, this morning, and see the oleanders, and the crape myrtle, and the pinks, the roses, and the tulips, and the hyacinths, I'm sure it would do you good."

"Oh, I should certainly catch cold, child, if I went out doors. Milly left a crack opened in the window, last night, and I've sneezed three or four times since. It will never do for me to go out in the garden; the feeling of the ground striking up through my shoes is very unhealthy."

"Well, at any rate, aunt, I should think, if the Lord didn't wish us to wear roses and jessamines, he would not have made them. And it is the most natural thing in the world to want to wear flowers."

"It only feeds vanity and a love of display, my dear."

"I don't think it's vanity, or a love of display. I should want to dress prettily, if I were the only person in the world. I love pretty things because they are pretty. I like to wear them because they make me look pretty."

"There it is, child; you want to dress up your poor perishing body to look pretty—that's the thing!"

"To be sure I do. Why shouldn't I? I mean to look as pretty as I can, as long as I live."

"You seem to have quite a conceit of your beauty!" said Aunt Nesbit.

"Well, I know I am pretty. I'm not going to pretend I don't. I like my own looks, now, that's a fact. I'm not like one of your Greek statues, I know. I'm not wonderfully handsome, nor likely to set the world on fire with my beauty. I'm just a pretty little thing; and I like flowers and laces, and all of those things; and I mean to like them, and I don't think there'll be a bit of religion in my not liking them; and as for all that disagreeable stuff about the worms, that you are always telling me, I don't think it does me a particle of good. And, if religion is going to make me so poky, I shall put it off as long I can."

"I used to feel just as you do, dear, but I've seen the folly of it!"

"If I've got to lose my love for everything that is bright, everything that is lively, and everything that is pretty, and like to read such horrid stupid books, why, I'd rather be buried, and done with it!"

"That's the opposition of the natural heart, my dear."

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of a bright, curly-headed mulatto boy, bearing Mrs. Nesbit's daily luncheon.

"Oh, here comes Tomtit," said Nina; "now for a scene. Let's see what he has forgotten, now."

Tomtit was, in his way, a great character in the mansion. He and his grandmother were the property of Mrs. Nesbit. His true name was no less respectable and methodical than that of Thomas; but, as he was one of those restless and effervescent sprites, who seem to be born for the confusion of quiet people, Nina had rechristened him Tomtit, which sobriquet was immediately recognized by the whole household as being eminently descriptive and appropriate. A constant ripple and eddy of drollery seemed to pervade his whole being; his large, saucy black eyes had always a laughing fire in them, that it was impossible to meet without a smile in return. Slave and property though he was, yet the first sentiment of reverence for any created thing seemed yet wholly unawakened in his curly pate. Breezy, idle, careless, flighty, as his woodland namesake, life to him seemed only a repressed and pent-up ebullition of animal enjoyment; and almost the only excitement of Mrs. Nesbit's quiet life was her chronic controversy with Tomtit. Forty or fifty times a day did the old body assure him "that she was astonished at his conduct;" and as many times would he reply by showing the whole set of his handsome teeth, on the broad grin, wholly inconsiderate of the state of despair into which he thus reduced her.

On the present occasion, as he entered the room, his eye was caught by the great display of finery on the bed; and, hastily dumping the waiter on the first chair that occurred, with a flirt and a spring as lithe as that of a squirrel, he was seated in a moment astride the foot-board, indulging in a burst of merriment.

"Good law, Miss Nina, whar on earth dese yer come from? Good law, some on 'em for me, isn't 'er?"

"You see that child!" now said Mrs. Nesbit, rocking back in her chair with the air of a martyr. "After all my talkings to him! Nina, you ought not to allow that; it just encourages him!"

"Tom, get down, you naughty creature you, and get the stand and put the waiter on it. Mind yourself, now!" said Nina, laughing.

Tomtit cut a somerset from the foot-board to the floor, and, striking up, on a very high key, "I'll bet my money on a bobtail nag," he danced out a small table, as if it had been a partner, and deposited it, with a jerk, at the side of Mrs. Nesbit, who aimed a cuff at his ears; but, as he adroitly ducked his head, the intended blow came down upon the table with more force than was comfortable to the inflictor.

"I believe that child is made of air!—I never can hit him!" said the good lady, waxing red in the face. "He is enough to provoke a saint!"

"So he is, aunt; enough to provoke two saints like you and me. Tomtit, you rogue," said she, giving a gentle pull to a handful of his curly hair, "be good, now, and I'll show you the pretty things, by and by. Come, put the waiter on the table, now; see if you can't walk, for once!"

Casting down his eyes with an irresistible look of mock solemnity, Tomtit marched with the waiter, and placed it by his mistress.

The good lady, after drawing off her gloves and making sundry little decorous preparations, said a short grace over her meal, during which time Tomtit seemed to be holding his sides with repressed merriment; then, gravely laying hold of the handle of the teapot she stopped short, gave an exclamation, and flirted her fingers, as she felt it almost scalding hot.

"Tomtit, I do believe you intend to burn me to death, some day!"

"Laws, missus, dat are hot? Oh, sure I was tickler to set the nose round to the fire."

"No, you didn't! You stuck the handle right into the fire as you're always doing!"

"Laws, now, wonder if I did," said Tomtit, assuming an abstracted appearance. "'Pears as if never can 'member which dem dare is nose, and which handle. Now, I's a studdin on dat dare most all de morning—was so," said he, gathering confidence, as he saw, by Nina's dancing eyes, how greatly she was amused.

"You need a sound whipping, sir—that's what you need!" said Mrs. Nesbit, kindling up in sudden wrath.

"Oh, I knows it," said Tomtit. "We's unprofitable servants, all on us. Lord's marcy that we an't 'sumed, all on us!"

Nina was so completely overcome by this novel application of the text which she had heard her aunt laboriously drumming into Tomtit, the Sabbath before, that she laughed aloud, with rather uproarious merriment.

"Oh, aunt, there's no use! He don't know anything! He's nothing but an incarnate joke, a walking hoax!"

"No, I doesn't know nothing, Miss Nina," said Tomtit, at the same time looking out from under his long eyelashes. "Don't know nothing at all—never can."

"Well, now, Tomtit," said Mrs. Nesbit, drawing out a little blue cowhide from under her chair, and looking at him resolutely, "you see, if this teapot handle is hot again, I'll give it to you! Do you hear?"

"Yes, missis," said Tomtit, with that indescribable sing-song of indifference, which is so common and so provoking in his class.

"And, now, Tomtit, you go down stairs and clean the knives for dinner."

"Yes, missis," said he, pirouetting towards the door. And once in the passage, he struck up a vigorous "Oh, I'm going to glory, won't you go along with me;" accompanying himself, by slapping his own sides, as he went down two stairs at a time.

"Going to glory!" said Mrs. Nesbit, rather shortly; "he looks like it, I think! It's the third or fourth time that that child has blistered my fingers with this teapot, and I know he does it on purpose! So ungrateful, when I spend my time, teaching him, hour after hour, laboring with him so! I declare, I don't believe these children have got any souls!"

"Well, aunt, I declare, I should think you'd get out of all patience with him; yet he's so funny, I cannot, for the life of me, help laughing."

Here a distant whoop on the staircase, and a tempestuous chorus to a Methodist hymn, with the words, "Oh come, my loving brethren," announced that Tomtit was on the return; and very soon, throwing open the door, he marched in, with an air of the greatest importance.

"Tomtit, didn't I tell you to go and clean the knives?"

"Law, missis, come up here to bring Miss Nina's love-letters," said he, producing two or three letters. "Good law, though," said he, checking himself, "forgot to put them on a waity!" and, before a word could be said, he was out of the room and down stairs, and at the height of furious contest with the girl who was cleaning the silver, for a waiter to put Miss Nina's letters on.

"Dar, Miss Nina," appealing to her when she appeared, "Rosa won't let me have no waity!"

"I could pull your hair for you, you little image!" said Nina, seizing the letters from his hands, and laughing while she cuffed his ears.

"Well," said Tomtit, looking after her with great solemnity, "missis in de right on't. An't no kind of order in this here house, 'pite of all I can do. One says put letters on waity. Another one won't let you have waity to put letters on. And, finally, Miss Nina, she pull them all away. Just the way things going on in dis yer house, all the time! I can't help it; done all I can. Just the way missus says!"

There was one member of Nina's establishment of a character so marked that we cannot refrain from giving her a separate place in our picture of her surroundings,—and this was Milly, the waiting-woman of Aunt Nesbit.

Aunt Milly, as she was commonly called, was a tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested African woman, with a fulness of figure approaching to corpulence. Her habit of standing and of motion was peculiar and majestic, reminding one of the Scripture expression "upright as the palm-tree." Her skin was of a peculiar blackness and softness, not unlike black velvet. Her eyes were large, full, and dark, and had about them that expression of wishfulness and longing which one may sometimes have remarked in dark eyes. Her mouth was large, and the lips, though partaking of the African fulness, had, nevertheless, something decided and energetic in their outline, which was still further seconded by the heavy moulding of the chin. A frank smile, which was common with her, disclosed a row of most splendid and perfect teeth. Her hair, without approaching to the character of the Anglo-Saxon, was still different from the ordinary woolly coat of the negro, and seemed more like an infinite number of close-knotted curls, of brilliant, glossy blackness.

The parents of Milly were prisoners taken in African wars; and she was a fine specimen of one of those warlike and splendid races, of whom, as they have seldom been reduced to slavery, there are but few and rare specimens among the slaves of the South.

Her usual head-dress was a high turban, of those brilliant colored Madras handkerchiefs in which the instinctive taste of the dark races leads them to delight. Milly's was always put on and worn with a regal air, as if it were the coronet of the queen. For the rest, her dress consisted of a well-fitted gown of dark stuff, of a quality somewhat finer than the usual household apparel. A neatly-starched white muslin handkerchief folded across her bosom, and a clean white apron, completed her usual costume.

No one could regard her, as a whole, and not feel their prejudice in favor of the exclusive comeliness of white races somewhat shaken. Placed among the gorgeous surroundings of African landscape and scenery, it might be doubted whether any one's taste could have desired, as a completion to her appearance, to have blanched the glossy skin whose depth of coloring harmonizes so well with the intense and fiery glories of a tropical landscape.

In character, Milly was worthy of her remarkable external appearance. Heaven had endowed her with a soul as broad and generous as her ample frame. Her passions rolled and burned in her bosom with a tropical fervor; a shrewd and abundant mother wit, united with a vein of occasional drollery, gave to her habits of speech a quaint vivacity.

A native adroitness gave an unwonted command over all the functions of her fine body, so that she was endowed with that much-coveted property which the New Englander denominates "faculty," which means the intuitive ability to seize at once on the right and best way of doing everything which is to be done. At the same time, she was possessed of that high degree of self-respect which led her to be incorruptibly faithful and thorough in all she undertook; less, as it often seemed, from any fealty or deference to those whom she served, than from a kind of native pride in well-doing, which led her to deem it beneath herself to slight or pass over the least thing which she had undertaken. Her promises were inviolable. Her owners always knew that what she once said would be done, if it were within the bounds of possibility.

The value of an individual thus endowed in person and character may be easily conceived by those who understand how rare, either among slaves or freemen, is such a combination. Milly was, therefore, always considered in the family as a most valuable piece of property, and treated with more than common consideration.

As a mind, even when uncultivated, will ever find its level, it often happened that Milly's amount of being and force of character gave her ascendency even over those who were nominally her superiors. As her ways were commonly found to be the best ways, she was left, in most cases, to pursue them without opposition or control. But, favorite as she was, her life had been one of deep sorrows. She had been suffered, it is true, to contract a marriage with a very finely-endowed mulatto man, on a plantation adjoining her owner's, by whom she had a numerous family of children, who inherited all her fine physical and mental endowments. With more than usual sensibility and power of reflection, the idea that the children so dear to her were from their birth not her own—that they were, from the first hour of their existence, merchantable articles, having a fixed market value in proportion to every excellence, and liable to all the reverses of merchantable goods—sank with deep weight into her mind. Unfortunately, the family to which she belonged being reduced to poverty, there remained, often, no other means of making up the deficiency of income than the annual sale of one or two negroes. Milly's children, from their fine developments, were much-coveted articles. Their owner was often tempted by extravagant offers for them; and therefore, to meet one crisis or another of family difficulties, they had been successively sold from her. At first, she had met this doom with almost the ferocity of a lioness; but the blow, oftentimes repeated, had brought with it a dull endurance, and Christianity had entered, as it often does with the slave, through the rents and fissures of a broken heart. Those instances of piety which are sometimes, though rarely, found among slaves, and which transcend the ordinary development of the best-instructed, are generally the results of calamities and afflictions so utterly desolating as to force the soul to depend on God alone. But, where one soul is thus raised to higher piety, thousands are crushed in hopeless imbecility.

CHAPTER V. HARRY AND HIS WIFE.

Several miles from the Gordon estate, on an old and somewhat decayed plantation, stood a neat log-cabin, whose external aspect showed both taste and care. It was almost enveloped in luxuriant wreaths of yellow jessamine, and garlanded with a magnificent lamarque rose, whose cream-colored buds and flowers contrasted beautifully with the dark, polished green of the finely-cut leaves.

The house stood in an enclosure formed by a high hedge of the American holly, whose evergreen foliage and scarlet berries made it, at all times of the year, a beautiful object. Within the enclosure was a garden, carefully tended, and devoted to the finest fruits and flowers.

This little dwelling, so different in its air of fanciful neatness from ordinary southern cabins, was the abode of Harry's little wife. Lisette, which was her name, was the slave of a French creole woman, to whom a plantation had recently fallen by inheritance.

She was a delicate, airy little creature, formed by a mixture of the African and French blood, producing one of those fanciful, exotic combinations, that give one the same impression of brilliancy and richness that one receives from tropical insects and flowers. From both parent races she was endowed with a sensuous being exquisitely quick and fine,—a nature of everlasting childhood, with all its freshness of present life, all its thoughtless, unreasoning fearlessness of the future.

She stands there at her ironing-table, just outside her cottage door, singing gayly at her work. Her round, plump, childish form is shown to advantage by the trim blue basque, laced in front, over a chemisette of white linen. Her head is wreathed with a gay turban, from which escapes, now and then, a wandering curl of her silky black hair. Her eyes, as she raises them, have the hazy, dreamy languor, which is so characteristic of the mixed races. Her little, childish hands are busy, with nimble fingers adroitly plaiting and arranging various articles of feminine toilet, too delicate and expensive to have belonged to those in humble circumstances. She ironed, plaited, and sung, with busy care. Occasionally, however, she would suspend her work, and, running between the flower-borders to the hedge, look wistfully along the road, shading her eyes with her hand. At last, as she saw a man on horseback approaching, she flew lightly out, and ran to meet him.

"Harry, Harry! You've come, at last. I'm so glad! And what have you got in that paper? Is it anything for me?"

He held it up, and shook it at her, while she leaped after it.

"No, no, little curiosity!" he said, gayly.

"I know it's something for me," said she, with a pretty, half-pouting air.

"And why do you know it's for you? Is everything to be for you in the world, you little good-for-nothing?"

"Good-for-nothing!" with a toss of the gayly-turbaned little head. "You may well say that, sir! Just look at the two dozen shirts I've ironed, since morning! Come, now, take me up; I want to ride."

Harry put out the toe of his boot and his hand, and, with an adroit spring, she was in a moment before him, on his horse's neck, and, with a quick turn, snatched the paper parcel from his hand.

"Woman's curiosity!" said he.

"Well, I want to see what it is. Dear me, what a tight string! Oh, I can't break it! Well, here it goes; I'll tear a hole in it, anyhow. Oh, silk, as I live! Aha! tell me now this isn't for me, you bad thing, you!"

"Why, how do you know it isn't to make me a summer coat?"

"Summer coat!—likely story! Aha! I've found you out, mister! But, come, do make the horse canter! I want to go fast. Make him canter, do!"

Harry gave a sudden jerk to the reins, and in a minute the two were flying off as if on the wings of the wind. On and on they went, through a small coppice of pines, while the light-hearted laugh rang on the breeze behind them. Now they are lost to view. In a few minutes, emerging from the pine woods in another direction, they come sweeping, gay and laughing, up to the gate. To fasten the horse, to snatch the little wife on his shoulder, and run into the cottage with her, seemed the work only of a moment; and, as he set her down, still laughing, he exclaimed,—

"There, go, now, for a pretty little picture, as you are! I have helped them get up les tableaux vivans, at their great houses; but you are my tableau. You aren't good for much. You are nothing but a humming-bird, made to live on honey!"

"That's what I am!" said the little one. "It takes a great deal of honey to keep me. I want to be praised, flattered, and loved, all the time. It isn't enough to have you love me. I want to hear you tell me so every day, and hour, and minute. And I want you always to admire me, and praise everything that I do. Now"—

"Particularly when you tear holes in packages!" said Harry.

"Oh, my silk—my new silk dress!" said Lisette, thus reminded of the package which she held in her hand. "This hateful string! How it cuts my fingers! I will break it! I'll bite it in two. Harry, Harry, don't you see how it hurts my fingers? Why don't you cut it?"

And the little sprite danced about the cottage floor, tearing the paper, and tugging at the string, like an enraged humming-bird. Harry came laughing behind her, and, taking hold of her two hands, held them quite still, while he cut the string of the parcel, and unfolded a gorgeous plaid silk, crimson, green, and orange.

"There, now, what do you think of that? Miss Nina brought it, when she came home, last week."

"Oh, how lovely! Isn't she a beauty? Isn't she good? How beautiful it is! Dear me, dear me! how happy I am! How happy we are!—an't we, Harry?"

A shadow came over Harry's forehead as he answered, with a half-sigh,—

"Yes."

"I was up at three o'clock this morning, on purpose to get all my ironing done to-day, because I thought you were to come home to-night. Ah! ah! you don't know what a supper I've got ready! You'll see, by and by. I'm going to do something uncommon. You mustn't look in that other room, Harry—you mustn't!"

"Mustn't I?" said Harry, getting up, and going to the door.

"There, now! who's curiosity now, I wonder!" said she, springing nimbly between him and the door. "No, you shan't go in, though. There, now; don't, don't! Be good now, Harry!"

"Well, I may as well give up first as last. This is your house, not mine, I suppose," said Harry.

"Mr. Submission, how meek we are, all of a sudden. Well, while the fit lasts, you go to the spring and get me some water to fill this tea-kettle. Off with you now, this minute! Mind you don't stop to play by the way!"

And, while Harry is gone to the spring, we will follow the wife into the forbidden room. Very cool and pleasant it is, with its white window-curtains, its matted floor, and displaying in the corner that draped feather-bed, with its ruffled pillows and fringed curtains, which it is the great ambition of the southern cabin to attain and maintain.

The door, which opened on to a show of most brilliant flowers, was overlaid completely by the lamarque rose we have before referred to; and large clusters of its creamy blossoms, and wreaths of its dark-green leaves, had been enticed in and tied to sundry nails and pegs by the small hands of the little mistress, to form an arch of flowers and roses. A little table stood in the door, draped with a spotless damasked table-cloth, fine enough for the use of a princess, and only produced by the little mistress on festive occasions. On it were arranged dishes curiously trimmed with moss and vine-leaves, which displayed strawberries and peaches, with a pitcher of cream and one of whey, small dishes of curd, delicate cakes and biscuit, and fresh golden butter.

After patting and arranging the table-cloth, Lisette tripped gayly around, and altered here and there the arrangement of a dish, occasionally stepping back, and cocking her little head on one side, much like a bird, singing gayly as she did so; then she would pick a bit of moss from this, and a flower from that, and retreat again, and watch the effect.

"How surprised he will be!" she said to herself. Still humming a tune in a low, gurgling undertone, she danced hither and thither, round the apartment. First she gave the curtains a little shake, and, unlooping one of them, looped it up again, so as to throw the beams of the evening sun on the table.

"There, there, there! how pretty the light falls through those nasturtions! I wonder if the room smells of the mignonette. I gathered it when the dew was on it, and they say that will make it smell all day. Now, here's Harry's book-case. Dear me! these flies! How they do get on to everything! Shoo, shoo! now, now!" and, catching a gay bandana handkerchief from the drawer, she perfectly exhausted herself in flying about the room in pursuit of the buzzing intruders, who soared, and dived, and careered, after the manner of flies in general, seeming determined to go anywhere but out of the door, and finally were seen brushing their wings and licking their feet, with great alertness, on the very topmost height of the sacred bed-curtains; and as just this moment a glimpse was caught of Harry returning from the spring, Lisette was obliged to abandon the chase, and rush into the other room, to prevent a premature development of her little tea-tableau. Then a small, pug-nosed, black tea-kettle came on to the stage of action, from some unknown cupboard; and Harry had to fill it with water, and of course spilt the water on to the ironing-table, which made another little breezy, chattering commotion; and then the flat-irons were cleared away, and the pug-nosed kettle reigned in their stead on the charcoal brazier.

"Now, Harry, was ever such a smart wife as I am? Only think, besides all the rest that I've done, I've ironed your white linen suit, complete! Now, go put it on. Not in there! not in there!" she said, pushing him away from the door. "You can't go there, yet. You'll do well enough out here."

And away she went, singing through the garden walks; and the song, floating back behind her, seemed like an odor brushed from the flowers. The refrain came rippling in at the door—

"Me think not what to-morrow bring;

Me happy, so me sing!"

"Poor little thing!" said Harry to himself; "why should I try to teach her anything?"

In a few minutes she was back again, her white apron thrown over her arm, and blossoms of yellow jessamine, spikes of blue lavender, and buds of moss-roses, peeping out from it. She skipped gayly along, and deposited her treasure on the ironing-table; then, with a zealous, bustling earnestness, which characterized everything she did, she began sorting them into two bouquets, alternately talking and singing, as she did so,—

"Come on, ye rosy hours,

All joy and gladness bring!"

"You see, Harry, you're going to have a bouquet to put into the button-hole of that coat. It will make you look so handsome! There, now—there, now,—

'We'll strew the way with flowers,

And merrily, merrily sing.'"

Suddenly stopping, she looked at him archly, and said, "You can't tell, now, what I'm doing all this for!"

"There's never any telling what you women do anything for."

"Do hear him talk—so pompous! Well, sir, it's for your birthday, now. Aha! you thought, because I can't keep the day of the month, that I didn't know anything about it; but I did. And I have put down now a chalk-mark every day, for four weeks, right under where I keep my ironing-account, so as to be sure of it. And I've been busy about it ever since two o'clock this morning. And now—there, the tea-kettle is boiling!"—and away she flew to the door.

"Oh, dear me!—dear me, now!—I've killed myself, now, I have!" she cried, holding up one of her hands, and flirting it up in the air. "Dear me! who knew it was so hot?"

"I should think a little woman that is so used to the holder might have known it," said Harry, as he caressed the little burnt hand.

"Come, now, let me carry it for you," said Harry, "and I'll make the tea, if you'll let me go into that mysterious room."

"Indeed, no, Harry—I'm going to do everything myself;" and, forgetting the burnt finger, Lisette was off in a moment, and back in a moment with a shining teapot in her hand, and the tea was made. And at last the mysterious door opened, and Lisette stood with her eyes fixed upon Harry, to watch the effect.

"Superb!—magnificent!—splendid! Why, this is good enough for a king! And where did you get all these things?" said Harry.

"Oh, out of our garden—all but the peaches. Those old Mist gave me—they come from Florida. There, now, you laughed at me, last summer, when I set those strawberry-vines, and made all sorts of fun of me. And what do you think now?"

"Think! I think you're a wonderful little thing—a perfect witch."

"Come, now, let's sit down, then—you there, and I here." And, opening the door of the bird-cage, which hung in the lamarque rose-bush, "Little Button shall come, too."

Button, a bright yellow canary, with a smart black tuft upon his head, seemed to understand his part in the little domestic scene perfectly; for he stepped obediently upon the finger which was extended to him, and was soon sitting quite at his ease on the mossy edge of one of the dishes, pecking at the strawberries.

"And now, do tell me," said Lisette, "all about Miss Nina. How does she look?"

"Pretty and smart as ever," said Harry. "Just the same witchy, wilful ways with her."

"And did she show you her dresses?"

"Oh, yes; the whole."

"Oh, do tell me about them, Harry—do!"

"Well, there's a lovely pink gauze, covered with spangles, to be worn over white satin."

"With flounces?" said Lisette, earnestly.

"With flounces."

"How many?"

"Really, I don't remember."

"Don't remember how many flounces? Why, Harry, how stupid! Say, Harry, don't you suppose she will let me come and look at her things?"

"Oh, yes, dear, I don't doubt she will; and that will save my making a gazette of myself."

"Oh, when will you take me there, Harry?"

"Perhaps to-morrow, dear. And now," said Harry, "that you have accomplished your surprise upon me, I have a surprise, in return, for you. You can't guess, now, what Miss Nina brought for me."

"No, indeed! What?" said Lisette, springing up; "do tell me—quick."

"Patience—patience!" said Harry, deliberately fumbling in his pocket, amusing himself with her excited air. But who should speak the astonishment and rapture which widened Lisette's dark eyes, when the watch was produced? She clapped her hands, and danced for joy, to the imminent risk of upsetting the table, and all the things on it.

"I do think we are the most fortunate people—you and I, Harry! Everything goes just as we want it to—doesn't it, now?"

Harry's assent to this comprehensive proposition was much less fervent than suited his little wife.

"Now, what's the matter with you? What goes wrong? Why don't you rejoice as I do?" said she, coming and seating herself down upon his knee. "Come, now, you've been working too hard, I know. I'm going to sing to you, now; you want something to cheer you up." And Lisette took down her banjo, and sat down in the doorway under the arch of lamarque roses, and began thrumming gayly.

"This is the nicest little thing, this banjo!" she said; "I wouldn't change it for all the guitars in the world. Now, Harry, I'm going to sing something specially for you." And Lisette sung:—

"What are the joys of white man, here,

What are his pleasures, say?

He great, he proud, he haughty fine

While I my banjo play:

He sleep all day, he wake all night;

He full of care, his heart no light;

He great deal want, he little get;

He sorry, so he fret.

"Me envy not the white man here,

Though he so proud and gay;

He great, he proud, he haughty fine,

While I my banjo play:

Me work all day, me sleep all night;

Me have no care, me heart is light;

Me think not what to-morrow bring;

Me happy, so me sing."

Lisette rattled the strings of the banjo, and sang with such a hearty abandon of enjoyment that it was a comfort to look at her. One would have thought that a bird's soul put into a woman's body would have sung just so.

"There," she said, throwing down her banjo, and seating herself on her husband's knee, "do you know I think you are like white man in the song? I should like to know what is the matter with you. I can see plain enough when you are not happy; but I don't see why."

"Oh, Lisette, I have very perplexing business to manage," said Harry. "Miss Nina is a dear, good little mistress, but she doesn't know anything about accounts, or money; and here she has brought me home a set of bills to settle, and I'm sure I don't know where the money is to be got from. It's hard work to make the old place profitable in our days. The ground is pretty much worked up; it doesn't bear the crops it used to. And, then, our people are so childish, they don't, a soul of them, care how much they spend, or how carelessly they work. It's very expensive keeping up such an establishment. You know the Gordons must be Gordons. Things can't be done now as some other families would do them; and, then, those bills which Miss Nina brings from New York are perfectly frightful."

"Well, Harry, what are you going to do?" said Lisette, nestling down close on his shoulder. "You always know how to do something."

"Why, Lisette, I shall have to do what I've done two or three times before—take the money that I have saved, to pay these bills—our freedom-money, Lisette."

"Oh, well, then, don't worry. We can get it again, you know. Why, you know, Harry, you can make a good deal with your trade, and one thing and another that you do; and, then, as for me, why, you know, my ironing, and my muslins, how celebrated they are. Come, don't worry one bit; we shall get on nicely."

"Ah! But, Lisette, all this pretty house of ours, garden, and everything, is only built on air, after all, till we are free. Any accident can take it from us. Now, there's Miss Nina; she is engaged, she tells me, to two or three lovers, as usual."

"Engaged, is she?" said Lisette, eagerly, female curiosity getting the better of every other consideration; "she always did have lovers, just, you know, as I used to."

"Yes; but, Lisette, she will marry, some time, and what a thing that would be for you and me! On her husband will depend all my happiness for all my life. He may set her against me; he may not like me. Oh, Lisette! I've seen trouble enough coming of marriages; and I was hoping, you see, that before that time came the money for my freedom would all be paid in, and I should be my own man. But, now, here it is. Just as the sum is almost made up, I must pay out five hundred dollars of it, and that throws us back two or three years longer. And what makes me feel the most anxious is, that I'm pretty sure Miss Nina will marry one of these lovers before long."

"Why, what makes you think so, Harry?"

"Oh, I've seen girls before now, Lisette, and I know the signs."

"What does she do? What does she say? Tell me, now, Harry."

"Oh, well, she runs on abusing the man, after her sort; and she's so very earnest and positive in telling me she don't like him."

"Just the way I used to do about you, Harry, isn't it?"

"Besides," said Harry, "I know, by the kind of character she gives of him, that she thinks of him very differently from what she ever did of any man before. Miss Nina little knows, when she is rattling about her beaux, what I'm thinking of. I'm saying, all the while, to myself, 'Is that man going to be my master?' and this Clayton, I'm very sure, is going to be my master."

"Well, isn't he a good man?"

"She says he is; but there's never any saying what good men will do, never. Good men think it right sometimes to do the strangest things. This man may alter the whole agreement between us,—he will have a right to do it, if he is her husband; he may refuse to let me buy myself; and, then, all the money that I've paid will go for nothing."

"But, certainly, Harry, Miss Nina will never consent to such a thing."

"Lisette, Miss Nina is one thing, but Mrs. Clayton may be quite another thing. I've seen all that, over and over again. I tell you, Lisette, that we who live on other people's looks and words, we watch and think a great deal! Ah! we come to be very sharp, I can tell you. The more Miss Nina has liked me, the less her husband may like me; don't you know that?"

"No; Harry, you don't dislike people I like."

"Child, child, that's quite another thing."

"Well, then, Harry, if you feel so bad about it, what makes you pay this money for Miss Nina? She don't know anything about it; she don't ask you to. I don't believe she would want you to, if she did know it. Just go and pay it in, and have your freedom-papers made out. Why don't you tell her all about it?"

"No, I can't, Lisette. I've had the care of her all her life, and I've made it as smooth as I could for her, and I won't begin to trouble her now. Do you know, too, that I'm afraid that, perhaps, if she knew all about it, she wouldn't do the right thing. There's never any knowing, Lisette. Now, you see, I say to myself, 'Poor little thing! she doesn't know anything about accounts, and she don't know how I feel.' But, if I should tell her, and she shouldn't care, and act as I've seen women act, why, then, you know I couldn't think so any more. I don't believe she would mind you; but, then, I don't like to try."

"Harry, what does make you love her so much?"

"Don't you know, Lisette, that Master Tom was a dreadful bad boy, always wilful and wayward, almost broke his father's heart; and he was always ugly and contrary to her? I'm sure I don't know why; for she was a sweet little thing, and she loves him now, ugly as he is, and he is the most selfish creature I ever saw. And, as for Miss Nina, she isn't selfish—she is only inconsiderate. But I've known her do for him, over and over, just what I do for her, giving him her money and her jewels to help him out of a scrape. But, then, to be sure, it all comes upon me, at last, which makes it all the more aggravating. Now, Lisette, I'm going to tell you something, but you mustn't tell anybody. Nina Gordon is my sister!"

"Harry!"

"Yes, Lisette, you may well open your eyes," said Harry, rising involuntarily; "I'm Colonel Gordon's oldest son! Let me have the comfort of saying it once, if I never do again."

"Harry, who told you?"

"He told me, Lisette—he, himself, told me, when he was dying, and charged me always to watch over her; and I have done it! I never told Miss Nina; I wouldn't have her told for the world. It wouldn't make her love me; more likely it would turn her against me. I've seen many a man sold for nothing else but looking too much like his father, or his brothers and sisters. I was given to her, and my sister and my mother went out to Mississippi with Miss Nina's aunt."

"I never heard you speak of this sister, Harry. Was she pretty?"

"Lisette, she was beautiful, she was graceful, and she had real genius. I've heard many singers on the stage that could not sing, with all their learning, as she did by nature."

"Well, what became of her?"

"Oh, what becomes of such women always, among us! Nursed, and petted, and caressed; taught everything elegant, nothing solid. Why, the woman meant well enough that had the care of her,—Mrs. Stewart, Colonel Gordon's sister,—but she couldn't prevent her son's wanting her, and taking her, for his mistress; and when she died there she was."

"Well."

"When George Stewart had lived with her two or three years, he was taken with small-pox. You know what perfect horror that always creates. None of his white acquaintances and friends would come near his plantation; the negroes were all frightened to death, as usual; overseer ran off. Well, then Cora Gordon's blood came up; she nursed him all through that sickness. What's more, she had influence to keep order on the place; got the people to getting the cotton crops themselves, so that when the overseer came sneaking back, things hadn't all gone to ruin, as they might have done. Well, the young fellow had more in him than some of them do; for when he got well he left his plantation, took her up to Ohio, and married her, and lived with her there."

"Why didn't he live with her on his plantation?" said Lisette.

"He couldn't have freed her there; it's against the laws. But, lately, I've got a letter from her saying that he had died and left to her and her son all his property on the Mississippi."

"Why, she will be rich, won't she?"

"Yes, if she gets it. But there's no knowing how that will be; there are fifty ways of cheating her out of it, I suppose. But, now, as to Miss Nina's estate, you don't know how I feel about it. I was trusted with it, and trusted with her. She never has known, more than a child, where the money came from, or went to; and it shan't be said that I've brought the estate in debt, for the sake of getting my own liberty. If I have one pride in life, it is to give it up to Miss Nina's husband in good order. But, then, the trouble of it, Lisette! The trouble of getting anything like decent work from these creatures; the ways that I have to turn and twist to get round them, and manage them, to get anything done. They hate me; they are jealous of me. Lisette, I'm just like the bat in the fable; I'm neither bird nor beast. How often I've wished that I was a good, honest, black nigger, like Uncle Pomp! Then I should know what I was; but, now, I'm neither one thing nor another. I come just near enough to the condition of the white to look into it, to enjoy it, and want everything that I see. Then, the way I've been educated makes it worse. The fact is, that when the fathers of such as we feel any love for us, it isn't like the love they have for their white children. They are half-ashamed of us; they are ashamed to show their love, if they have it; and, then, there's a kind of remorse and pity about it, which they make up to themselves by petting us. They load us with presents and indulgences. They amuse themselves with us while we are children, and play off all our passions as if we were instruments to be played on. If we show talent and smartness, we hear some one say, aside, 'It's rather a pity, isn't it?' or, 'He is too smart for his place.' Then, we have all the family blood and the family pride; and what to do with it? I feel that I am a Gordon. I feel in my very heart that I'm like Colonel Gordon—I know I am, and, sometimes, I know I look like him, and that's one reason why Tom Gordon always hated me; and, then, there's another thing, the hardest of all, to have a sister like Miss Nina, to feel she is my sister, and never dare to say a word of it! She little thinks, when she plays and jokes with me, sometimes, how I feel. I have eyes and senses; I can compare myself with Tom Gordon. I know he never would learn anything at any of the schools he was put to; and I know that when his tutors used to teach me, how much faster I got along than he did. And yet he must have all the position, and all the respect; and, then, Miss Nina so often says to me, by way of apology, when she puts up with his ugliness, 'Ah! well, you know, Harry, he is the only brother I have got in the world!' Isn't it too bad? Colonel Gordon gave me every advantage of education, because I think he meant me for just this place which I fill. Miss Nina was his pet. He was wholly absorbed in her, and he was frightened at Tom's wickedness; and so he left me bound to the estate in this way, only stipulating that I should buy myself on favorable terms before Miss Nina's marriage. She has always been willing enough. I might have taken any and every advantage of her inconsiderateness. And Mr. John Gordon has been willing, too, and has been very kind about it, and has signed an agreement as guardian, and Miss Nina has signed it too, that, in case of her death, or whatever happened, I'm to have my freedom on paying a certain sum, and I have got his receipts for what I have paid. So that's tolerably safe. Lisette, I had meant never to have been married till I was a free man; but, somehow, you bewitched me into it. I did very wrong."

"Oh, pshaw! pshaw!" interrupted Lisette. "I an't going to hear another word of this talk! What's the use? We shall do well enough. Everything will come out right,—you see if it don't, now. I was always lucky, and I always shall be."

The conversation was here interrupted by a loud whooping, and a clatter of horse's heels.

"What's that?" said Harry, starting to the window. "As I live, now, if there isn't that wretch of a Tomtit, going off with that horse! How came he here? He will ruin him! Stop there! hallo!" he exclaimed, running out of doors after Tomtit.

Tomtit, however, only gave a triumphant whoop, and disappeared among the pine-trees.

"Well, I should like to know what sent him here!" said Harry, walking up and down, much disturbed.

"Oh, he's only going round through the grove; he will be back again," said Lisette; "never fear. Isn't he a handsome little rogue?"

"Lisette, you never can see trouble anywhere!" said Harry, almost angrily.

"Ah! yes I do," said Lisette, "when you speak in that tone! Please don't, Harry! What should you want me to see trouble for?"

"I don't know, you little thing," said Harry, stroking her head fondly.

"Ah, there comes the little rascal, just as I knew he would!" said Lisette. "He only wanted to take a little race; he hasn't hurt the horse;" and, tripping lightly out, she caught the reins, just as Tomtit drove up to the gate; and it seemed but a moment before he was over in the garden, with his hands full of flowers.

"Stop, there, you young rascal, and tell me what sent you here!" said Harry, seizing him, and shaking him by the shoulder.

"Laws, Massa Harry, I wants to get peaches, like other folks," said the boy, peeping roguishly in at the window, at the tea-table.

"And he shall have a peach, too," said Lisette, "and some flowers, if he'll be a good boy, and not tread on my borders."

Tomtit seized greedily at the peach she gave him, and, sitting flat down where he stood, and throwing the flowers on the ground beside him, began eating it with an earnestness of devotion as if his whole being were concentrated in the act. The color was heightened in his brown cheek by the exercise, and, with his long, drooping curls and eyelashes, he looked a very pretty centre to the flower-piece which he had so promptly improvised.

"Ah, how pretty he is!" said Lisette, touching Harry's elbow. "I wish he was mine!"

"You'd have your hands full, if he was," said Harry eying the intruder discontentedly, while Lisette stood picking the hulls from a fine bunch of strawberries which she was ready to give him when he had finished the peach.

"Beauty makes fools of all you girls," said Harry, cynically.

"Is that the reason I married you?" said Lisette, archly. "Well, I know I could make him good, if I had the care of him. Nothing like coaxing; is there, Tom?"

"I'll boun' there an't!" said Tom, opening his mouth for the strawberries with much the air of a handsome, saucy robin.

"Well," said Harry, "I should like to know what brought him over here. Speak, now, Tom! Weren't you sent with some message?"

"Oh laws, yes!" said Tom, getting up, and scratching his curly head. "Miss Nina sent me. She wants you to get on dat ar horse, and make tracks for home like split foot. She done got letters from two or three of her beaux, and she is dancing and tearing round there real awful. She done got scared, spects; feard they'd all come together."

"And she sent you on a message, and you haven't told me, all this time!" said Harry, making a motion as though he was going to box the child's ears; but the boy glided out of his hands as if he had been water, and was gone, vanishing among the shrubbery of the garden; and while Harry was mounting his horse, he reappeared on the roof of the little cabin, caricoling and dancing, shouting at the topmost of his voice,—

"Away down old Virginny,

Dere I bought a yellow girl for a guinea."

"I'll give it to you, some time!" said Harry, shaking his fist at him.

"No, he won't, either," cried Lisette, laughing. "Come down here, Tomtit, and I'll make a good boy of you."

CHAPTER VI. THE DILEMMA.

In order to understand the occasion which hurried Harry home, we must go back to Canema. Nina, after taking her letters from the hands of Tomtit, as we have related, ran back with them into Mrs. Nesbit's room, and sat herself down to read them. As she read, she evidently became quite excited and discomposed, crumpling a paper with her little hand, and tapping her foot impatiently on the carpet.

"There, now, I'm sure I don't know what I shall do, Aunt Nesbit!" addressing her aunt, because it was her outspoken habit to talk to any body or thing which happened to be sitting next to her. "I've got myself into a pretty scrape now!"

"I told you you'd get into trouble, one of these days!"

"Oh, you told me so! If there's anything I hate, it is to have anybody tell me 'I told you so!' But now aunt, really, I know I've been foolish, but I don't know what to do. Here are two gentlemen coming together, that I wouldn't have meet each other here for the world; and I don't know really what I had better do."

"You'd better do just as you please, as you always do, and always would, ever since I knew you," said Aunt Nesbit, in a calm, indifferent tone.

"But, really, aunt, I don't know what's proper to do in such a case."

"Your and my notions of propriety, Nina, are so different, that I don't know how to advise you. You see the consequences, now, of not attending to the advice of your friends. I always knew these flirtations of yours would bring you into trouble." And Aunt Nesbit said this with that quiet, satisfied air with which precise elderly people so often edify their thoughtless young friends under difficulties.

"Well, I didn't want a sermon, now, Aunt Nesbit; but, as you've seen a great deal more of the world than I have, I thought you might help me a little, just to tell me whether it wouldn't be proper for me to write and put one of these gentlemen off; or make some excuse for me, or something. I'm sure I never kept house before. I don't want to do anything that don't seem hospitable; and yet I don't want them to come together. Now, there, that's flat!"

There was a long pause, in which Nina sat vexed and coloring, biting her lips, and nestling uneasily in her seat.

Mrs. Nesbit looked calm and considerate, and Nina began to hope that she was taking the case a little to heart.

At last the good old lady looked up, and said, very quietly, "I wonder what time it is."

Nina thought she was debating the expediency of sending some message; and therefore she crossed the room with great alacrity, to look at the old clock in the entry.

"It's half-past two, aunt!" and she stood, with her lips apart, looking at Mrs. Nesbit for some suggestion.

"I was going to tell Rosa," said she, abstractedly, "that that onion in the stuffing does not agree with me. It rose on my stomach all yesterday morning; but it's too late now."

Nina actually stamped with anger.

"Aunt Nesbit, you are the most selfish person I ever saw in my life!"

"Nina, child, you astonish me!" said Aunt Nesbit, with her wonted placidity. "What's the matter?"

"I don't care!" said Nina; "I don't care a bit! I don't see how people can be so! If a dog should come to me and tell me he was in trouble, I think I should listen to him, and show some kind of interest to help him! I don't care how foolish anybody has been; if they are in trouble, I'd help them, if I could; and I think you might think enough of it to give me some little advice!"

"Oh, you are talking about that affair, yet?" said her aunt. "Why, I believe I told you I didn't know what to advise, didn't I? Shouldn't give way to this temper, Nina; it's very unladylike, besides being sinful. But, then, I don't suppose it's any use for me to talk!" And Aunt Nesbit, with an abused air, got up, walked quietly to the looking-glass, took off her morning cap, unlocked her drawer, and laid it in; took out another, which Nina could not see differed a particle from the last, held it up thoughtfully on her hand, and appeared absorbed in the contemplation of it,—while Nina, swelling with a mixture of anger and mortification, stood regarding her as she leisurely picked out each bow, and finally, with a decorous air of solemnity, arranged it upon her head, patting it tenderly down.

"Aunt Nesbit," she said, suddenly, as if the words hurt her, "I think I spoke improperly, and I'm very sorry for it. I beg your pardon."

"Oh, it's no matter, child; I didn't care about it. I'm pretty well used to your temper."

Bang went the door, and in a moment Nina stood in the entry, shaking her fist at it with impotent wrath.

"You stony, stiff, disagreeable old creature! how came you ever to be my mother's sister?" And, with the word mother, she burst into a tempest of tears, and rushed violently to her own chamber. The first object that she saw was Milly, arranging some clothes in her drawer; and, to her astonishment, Nina rushed up to her, and, throwing her arms round her neck, sobbed and wept in such tumultuous excitement that the good creature was alarmed.

"Laws bless my soul, my dear little lamb! what's the matter? Why, don't! Don't, honey! Why, bless the dear little soul! bless the dear precious lamb! who's been a hurting of it?" And, at each word of endearment, Nina's distress broke out afresh, and she sobbed so bitterly that the faithful creature really began to be frightened.

"Laws, Miss Nina, I hope there an't nothing happened to you now!"

"No, no, nothing, Milly, only I am lonesome, and I want my mother! I haven't got any mother! Dear me!" she said, with a fresh burst.

"Ah, the poor thing!" said Milly, compassionately, sitting down, and fondling Nina in her arms, as if she had been a babe. "Poor chile! Laws, yes; I 'member your ma was a beautiful woman!"

"Yes," said Nina, speaking between her sobs, "the girls at school had mothers. And there was Mary Brooks, she used to read to me her mother's letters, and I used to feel so, all the while, to think nobody wrote such letters to me! And there's Aunt Nesbit—I don't care what they say about her being religious, she is the most selfish, hateful creature I ever did see! I do believe, if I was lying dead and laid out in the next room to her, she would be thinking what she'd get next for dinner!"

"Oh, don't, my poor lamb, don't!" said Milly, compassionately.

"Yes, I will, too! She's always taking it for granted that I'm the greatest sinner on the face of the earth! She don't scold me—she don't care enough about me to scold! She only takes it for granted, in her hateful, quiet way, that I'm going to destruction, and that she can't help it, and don't care! Supposing I'm not good!—what's to make me good? Is it going to make me good for people to sit up so stiff, and tell me they always knew I was a fool, and a flirt, and all that? Milly, I've had dreadful turns of wanting to be good, and I've laid awake nights and cried because I wasn't good. And what makes it worse is, that I think if Ma was alive she could help me. She wasn't like Aunt Nesbit, was she, Milly?"

"No, honey, she wasn't. I'll tell you about your ma some time, honey."

"The worst of it is," said Nina, "when Aunt Nesbit speaks to me in her hateful way, I get angry; then I speak in a way that isn't proper, I know. Oh, if she only would get angry with me back again! or if she'd do anything in the world but stand still, in her still way, telling me she is astonished at me! That's a lie, too; for she never was astonished at anything in her life! She hasn't life enough to be!"

"Ah, Miss Nina, we mustn't spect more of folks than there is in them."

"Expect? I don't expect!"

"Well, bless you, honey, when you knows what folks is, don't let's worry. Ye can't fill a quart-cup out of a thimble, honey, no way you can fix it. There's just whar 'tis. I knowed your ma, and I's knowed Miss Loo, ever since she was a girl. 'Pears like they wan't no more alike than snow is like sugar. Miss Loo, when she was a girl, she was that pretty that everybody was wondering after her; but to de love, dat ar went after your ma. Couldn't tell why it was, honey. 'Peared like Miss Loo wan't techy, nor she wan't one of your bursting-out sort, scolding round. 'Peared like she'd never hurt nobody; and yet our people, they couldn't none of dem bar her. 'Peared like nobody did nothing for her with a will."

"Well, good reason!" said Nina; "she never did anything for anybody else with a will! She never cared for anybody! Now, I'm selfish; I always knew it. I do a great many selfish things; but it's a different kind from hers. Do you know, Milly, she don't seem to know she is selfish? There she sits, rocking in her old chair, so sure she's going straight to heaven, and don't care whether anybody else gets there or not!"

"Oh laws, now, Miss Nina, you's too hard on her. Why, look how patient she sits with Tomtit, teaching him his hymns and varses."

"And you think that's because she cares anything about him? Do you know she thinks he isn't fit to go to heaven, and that if he dies he'll go to the bad place. And yet, if he was to die to-morrow, she'd talk to you about clear-starching her caps! No wonder the child don't love her! She talks to him just as she does to me; tells him she don't expect anything of him—she knows he'll never come to any good; and the little wretch has got it by heart, now. Do you know that, though I get in a passion with Tom, sometimes, and though I'm sure I should perish sitting boring with him over those old books, yet I really believe I care more for him than she does? And he knows it, too. He sees through her as plain as I do. You'll never make me believe that Aunt Nesbit has got religion. I know there is such a thing as religion; but she hasn't got it. It isn't all being sober, and crackling old stiff religious newspapers, and boring with texts and hymns, that makes people religious. She is just as worldly-minded as I am, only it's in another way. There, now, I wanted her to advise me about something, to-day. Why, Milly, all girls want somebody to talk with; and if she'd only showed the least interest in what I said, she might scold me and lecture me as much as she'd a mind to. But, to have her not even hear me! And when she must have seen that I was troubled and perplexed, and wanted somebody to advise me, she turned round so cool, and began to talk about the onions and the stuffing! Got me so angry! I suppose she is in her room, now, rocking, and thinking what a sinner I am!"

"Well, now, Miss Nina, 'pears though you've talked enough about dat ar; 'pears like it won't make you feel no better."

"Yes it does make me feel better! I had to speak to somebody, Milly, or else I should have burst; and now I wonder where Harry is. He always could find a way for me out of anything."

"He is gone over to see his wife, I think, Miss Nina."

"Oh, too bad! Do sent Tomtit after him, right away. Tell him that I want him to come right home, this very minute—something very particular. And, Milly, you just go and tell Old Hundred to get out the carriage and horses, and I'll go over and drop a note in the post-office, myself. I won't trust it to Tomtit; for I know he'll lose it."

"Miss Nina," said Milly, looking hesitatingly, "I 'spect you don't know how things go about round here; but the fact is, Old Hundred has got so kind of cur'ous, lately, there can't nobody do nothing with him, except Harry. Don't 'tend to do nothing Miss Loo tells him to. I's feared he'll make up some story or other about the horses; but he won't get 'em out—now, mind, I tell you, chile!"

"He won't! I should like to know if he won't, when I tell him to! A pretty story that would be! I'll soon teach him that he has a live mistress—somebody quite different from Aunt Loo!"

"Well, well, chile, perhaps you'd better go. He wouldn't mind me, I know. Maybe he'll do it for you."

"Oh, yes; I'll just run down to his house, and hurry him up." And Nina, quite restored to her usual good-humor, tripped gayly across to the cabin of Old Hundred, that stood the other side of the house.

Old Hundred's true name was, in fact, John. But he had derived the appellation, by which he was always known, from the extreme moderation of all his movements. Old Hundred had a double share of that profound sense of the dignity of his office which is an attribute of the tribe of coachmen in general. He seemed to consider the horses and carriage as a sort of family ark, of which he was the high priest, and which it was his business to save from desecration. According to his own showing, all the people on the plantation, and indeed the whole world in general, were in a state of habitual conspiracy against the family carriage and horses, and he was standing for them, single-handed, at the risk of his life. It was as much part of his duty, in virtue of his office, to show cause, on every occasion, why the carriage should not be used, as it is for state attorneys to undertake prosecutions. And it was also a part of the accomplishment of his situation to conduct his refusal in the most decorous manner; always showing that it was only the utter impossibility of the case which prevented. The available grounds of refusal Old Hundred had made a life-study, and had always a store of them cut and dried for use, all ready at a moment's notice. In the first place, there were always a number of impossibilities with regard to the carriage. Either "it was muddy, and he was laying out to wash it;" or else "he had washed it, and couldn't have it splashed;" or "he had taken out the back curtain, and had laid out to put a stitch in it, one of dese yer days;" or there was something the matter with the irons. "He reckoned they was a little bit sprung." He "'lowed he'd ask the blacksmith about it, some of dese yer times." And then as to the horses the possibilities were rich and abundant. What with strains, and loose shoes, and stones getting in at the hoofs, dangers of all sorts of complaints, for which he had his own vocabulary of names, it was next to an impossibility, according to any ordinary rule of computing chances, that the two should be in complete order together.

Utterly ignorant, however, of the magnitude of the undertaking which she was attempting, and buoyant with the consciousness of authority, Nina tripped singing along, and found Old Hundred tranquilly reclining in his tent-door, watching through his half-shut eyes, while the afternoon sunbeam irradiated the smoke which rose from the old pipe between his teeth. A large, black, one-eyed crow sat perching, with a quizzical air, upon his knee; and when he heard Nina's footsteps approaching, cocked his remaining eye towards her, with a smart, observing attitude, as if he had been deputed to look out for applications while his master dozed. Between this crow, who had received the sobriquet of Uncle Jeff, and his master, there existed a most particular bond of friendship and amity. This was further strengthened by the fact that they were both equally disliked by all the inhabitants of the place. Like many people who are called to stand in responsible positions, Old Hundred had rather failed in the humble virtues, and become dogmatical and dictatorial to that degree that nobody but his own wife could do anything with him. And as to Jeff, if the principle of thievery could be incarnate, he might have won a temple among the Lacedemonians. In various skirmishes and battles consequent on his misdeeds, Jeff had lost an eye, and had a considerable portion of the feathers scalded off on one side of his head; while the remaining ones, discomposed by the incident, ever after stood up in a protesting attitude, imparting something still more sinister to his goblin appearance. In another rencounter he had received a permanent twist in the neck, which gave him always the appearance of looking over his shoulder, and added not a little to the oddity of the general effect. Uncle Jeff thieved with an assiduity and skill which were worthy of a better cause; and, when not upon any serious enterprise of this kind, employed his time in pulling up corn, scratching up newly-planted flower-seeds, tangling yarn, pulling out knitting-needles, pecking the eyes of sleeping people, scratching and biting children, and any other little miscellaneous mischief which occurred to him. He was invaluable to Old Hundred, because he was a standing apology for any and all discoveries made on his premises of things which ought not to have been there. No matter what was brought to light,—whether spoons from the great house, or a pair of sleeve-buttons, or a handkerchief, or a pipe from a neighboring cabin,—Jeff was always called up to answer. Old Hundred regularly scolded, on these occasions, and declared he was enough to "spile the character of any man's house." And Jeff would look at him comically over the shoulder, and wink his remaining eye, as much as to say that the scolding was a settled thing between them, and that he wasn't going to take it at all in ill part.

"Uncle John," said Nina, "I want you to get the carriage out for me, right away. I want to take a ride over the cross run."

"Laws bless you sweet face, honey, chile, I's dreadful sorry; but you can't do it dis yer day."

"Can't do it! Why not?"

"Why, bless you, chile, it an't possible, no way. Can't have the carriage and hosses dis yer arternoon."

"But I must go over to cross run to the post-office. I must go this minute!"

"Law, chile, you can't do it! fur you can't walk, and it's sartain you can't ride, because dese yer hosses, nor dis yer carriage, can't stir out dis yer arternoon, no way you can fix it. Mout go, perhaps, to-morrow, or next week."

"Oh, Uncle John, I don't believe a word of it! I want them this afternoon, and I say I must have them!"

"No, you can't, chile," said Old Hundred, in a tender, condescending tone, as if he was speaking to a baby. "I tell you dat ar is impossible. Why, bless your soul, Miss Nina, de curtains is all off de carriage!"

"Well, put them on again, then!"

"Ah, Miss Nina, dat ar an't all. Pete was desperate sick, last night; took with de thumps, powerful bad. Why, Miss Nina, he was dat sick I had to be up with him most all night!" And, while Old Hundred thus adroitly issued this little work of fiction, the raven nodded waggishly at Nina, as much as to say, "You hear that fellow, now!"

Nina stood quite perplexed, biting her lips, and Old Hundred seemed to go into a profound slumber.

"I don't believe but what the horses can go to-day! I mean to go and look."

"Laws, honey, chile, ye can't, now; de do's is all locked, and I've got de key in my pocket. Every one of dem critturs would have been killed forty times over 'fore now. I think everybody in dis yer world is arter dem dar critturs. Miss Loo, she's wanting 'em to go one way, and Harry's allers usin' de critturs. Got one out, dis yer arternoon, riding over to see his wife. Don't see no use in his riding round so grand, noway! Laws, Miss Nina, your pa used to say to me, says he, 'Uncle John, you knows more about dem critturs dan I do; and, now I tell you what it is, Uncle John—you take care of dem critturs; don't you let nobody kill 'em for nothing.' Now, Miss Nina, I's always a walking in the steps of the colonel's 'rections. Now, good, clar, bright weather, over good roads, I likes to trot the critturs out. Dat ar is reasonable. But, den, what roads is over the cross run, I want to know? Dem dere roads is de most mis'ablest things you ever did see. Mud! Hi! Ought for to see de mud down dar by de creek! Why, de bridge all tared off! Man drowned in dat dar creek once! Was so! It an't no sort of road for young ladies to go over. Tell you, Miss Nina; why don' you let Harry carry your letter over? If he must be ridin' round de country, don't see why he couldn't do some good wid his ridin'. Why, de carriage wouldn't get over before ten o'clock, dis yer night! Now, mine, I tell you. Besides, it's gwine fur to rain. I's been feeling dat ar in my corns, all dis yer morning; and Jeff, he's been acting like the berry debil hisself—de way he always does 'fore it rains. Never knowed dat ar sign to fail."

"The short of the matter is, Uncle John, you are determined not to go," said Nina. "But I tell you you shall go!—there, now! Now, do you get up immediately, and get out those horses!"

Old Hundred still sat quiet, smoking; and Nina, after reiterating her orders till she got thoroughly angry, began, at last, to ask herself the question, how she was going to carry them into execution. Old Hundred appeared to have descended into himself in a profound reverie, and betrayed not the smallest sign of hearing anything she said.

"I wish Harry would come back quick," she said to herself as she pensively retraced her steps through the garden; but Tomtit had taken the commission to go for him in his usual leisurely way spending the greater part of the afternoon on the road.

"Now, an't you ashamed of yourself, you mean old nigger!" said Aunt Rose, the wife of Old Hundred, who had been listening to the conversation; "talking 'bout de creek, and de mud, and de critturs, and Lor knows what all, when we all knows it's nothing but your laziness!"

"Well," said Old Hundred, "and what would come o' the critturs if I wasn't lazy, I want to know? Laziness! it's the berry best thing for the critturs can be. Where'd dem horses a been now, if I had been one of your highfelutin sort, always driving round? Where'd dey a been, and what would dey a been, hey? Who wants to see hosses all skin and bone? Lord! if I had been like some o' de coachmen, de buzzards would have had the picking of dem critturs, long ago!"

"I rally believe that you've told dem dar lies till you begin to believe them yourself!" said Rose. "Telling our dear, sweet young lady about your being up with Pete all night, when de Lord knows you laid here snoring fit to tar de roof off!"

"Well, must say something! Folks must be 'spectful to de ladies. Course I couldn't tell her I wouldn't take de critturs out; so I just trots out scuse. Ah! lots of dem scuses I keeps! I tell you, now, scuses is excellent things. Why, scuses is like dis yer grease that keeps de wheels from screaking. Lord bless you, de whole world turns round on scuses. Whar de world be if everybody was such fools to tell the raal reason for everything they are gwine for to do, or an't gwine fur to!"

CHAPTER VII. CONSULTATION.

"Oh, Harry, I'm so glad to see you back! In such trouble as I've been to-day! Don't you think, this very morning, as I was sitting in Aunt Nesbit's room, Tomtit brought up these two letters; and one of them is from Clayton, and the other from Mr. Carson; and, now, see here what Clayton says: 'I shall have business that will take me in your vicinity next week; and it is quite possible, unless I hear from you to the contrary, that you may see me at Canema next Friday or Saturday.' Well, then, see here; there's another from Mr. Carson,—that hateful Carson! Now, you see, he hasn't got my letter; says he is coming. What impudence! I'm tired to death of that creature, and he'll be here just as certain! Disagreeable people always do keep their promises! He'll certainly be here!"

"Well, Miss Nina, you recollect you said you thought it would be good fun."

"Oh, Harry, don't bring that up, I beg of you! The fact is, Harry, I've altered my mind about that. You know I've put a stop to all those foolish things at once, and am done with them. You know I wrote to Carson and Emmons, both, that my sentiments had changed, and all that sort of thing, that the girls always say. I'm going to dismiss all of 'em at once, and have no more fooling."

"What, all? Mr. Clayton and all?"

"Well, I don't know, exactly,—no. Do you know, Harry, I think his letters are rather improving?—at least, they are different letters from any I've got before; and, though I don't think I shall break my heart after him, yet I like to get them. But the other two I'm sick to death of; and, as for having that creature boring round here, I won't! At any rate, I don't want him and Clayton here together. I wouldn't have them together for the world; and I wrote a letter to keep Carson off, this morning, and I've been in trouble all day. Everybody has plagued me. Aunt Nesbit only gave me one of her mopy lectures about flirting, and wouldn't help me in the least. And, then, Old Hundred: I wanted him to get out the carriage and horses for me to go over and put this letter in the office, and I never saw such a creature in my life! I can't make him do anything! I should like to know what the use is of having servants, if you can't get anything done!"

"Oh, as to Old Hundred, I understand him, and he understands me," said Harry. "I never find any trouble with him; but he is a provoking old creature. He stands very much on the dignity of his office. But, if you want your letter carried to-night, I can contrive a safer way than that, if you'll trust it to me."

"Ah! well, do take it!"

"Yes," said Harry, "I'll send a messenger across on horseback, and I have means to make him faithful."

"Well, Harry, Harry!" said Nina, catching at his sleeve as he was going out, "come back again, won't you? I want to talk to you."

During Harry's absence, our heroine drew a letter from her bosom, and read it over.

"How well he writes!" she said to herself. "So different from the rest of them! I wish he'd keep away from here,—that's what I do! It's a pretty thing to get his letters, but I don't think I want to see him. Oh, dear! I wish I had somebody to talk to about it—Aunt Nesbit is so cross! I can't—no, I won't care about him! Harry is a kind soul."

"Ah, Harry, have you sent the letter?" said she eagerly as he entered.

"I have, Miss Nina; but I can't flatter you too much. I'm afraid it's too late for the mail—though there's never any saying when the mail goes out, within two or three hours."

"Well, I hope it will stay for me, once. If that stupid creature comes, why, I don't know what I shall do! He's so presuming! and he'll squeak about with those horrid shoes of his; and then, I suppose, it will all come out, one way or another; and I don't know what Clayton will think."

"But I thought you didn't care what he thought."

"Well, you know, he's been writing to me all about his family. There's his father, is a very distinguished man, of a very old family; and he's been writing to me about his sister, the most dreadfully sensible sister, he has got—good, lovely, accomplished, and pious! Oh, dear me! I don't know what in the world he ever thought of me for! And, do you think, there's a postscript from his sister, written elegantly as can be!"

"As to family, Miss Nina," said Harry, "I think the Gordons can hold up their heads with anybody; and, then, I rather think you'll like Miss Clayton."

"Ah! but, then, Harry, this talking about fathers and sisters, it's bringing the thing awfully near! It looks so much, you know, as if I really were caught. Do you know, Harry, I think I'm just like my pony? You know, she likes to have you come and offer her corn, and stroke her neck; and she likes to make you believe she's going to let you catch her; but when it comes to putting a bridle on her, she's off in a minute. Now, that's the way with me. It's rather exciting, you know, these beaux, and love-letters, and talking sentiment, going to the opera, and taking rides on horseback, and all that. But, when men get to talking about their fathers, and their sisters, and to act as if they were sure of me, I'm just like Sylfine—I want to be off. You know, Harry, I think it's a very serious thing, this being married. It's dreadful! I don't want to be a woman grown. I wish I could always be a girl, and live just as I have lived, and have plenty more girls come and see me, and have fun. I haven't been a bit happy lately, not a bit; and I never was unhappy before in my life."

"Well, why don't you write to Mr. Clayton, and break it all off, if you feel so about it?"

"Well, why don't I? I don't know. I've had a great mind to do it; but I'm afraid I should feel worse than I do now. He's coming just like a great dark shadow over my life, and everything is beginning to feel so real to me! I don't want to take up life in earnest. I read a story, once, about Undine; and, do you know, Harry, I think I feel just as Undine did, when she felt her soul coming in her?"

"And is Clayton Knight Heldebound?" said Harry, smiling.

"I don't know. What if he should be? Now, Harry, you see the fact is that sensible men get their heads turned by such kind of girls as I am; and they pet us, and humor us. But, then, I'm afraid they're thinking, all the while, that their turn to rule is coming, by and by. They marry us because they think they are going to make us over; and what I'm afraid of is, I never can be made over. Don't think I was cut out right in the first place; and there never will be much more of me than there is now. And he'll be comparing me with his pattern sister; and I shan't be any the more amiable for that. Now, his sister is what folks call highly-educated, you know, Harry. She understands all about literature, and everything. As for me, I've just cultivation enough to appreciate a fine horse—that's the extent. And yet I'm proud. I wouldn't wish to stand second, in his opinion, even to his sister. So, there it is. That's the way with us girls! We are always wanting what we know we ought not to have, and are not willing to take the trouble to get."

"Miss Nina, if you'll let me speak my mind out frankly, now, I want to offer one piece of advice. Just be perfectly true and open with Mr. Clayton; and if he and Mr. Carson should come together, just tell him frankly how the matter stands. You are a Gordon, and they say truth always runs in the Gordon blood; and now, Miss Nina, you are no longer a school-girl, but a young lady at the head of the estate."

He stopped, and hesitated.

"Well, Harry, you needn't stop. I understand you—got a few grains of sense left, I hope, and haven't got so many friends that I can afford to get angry with you for nothing."

"I suppose," said Harry, thoughtfully, "that your aunt will be well enough to be down to the table. Have you told her how matters stand?"

"Who? Aunt Loo? Catch me telling her anything! No, Harry, I've got to stand all alone. I haven't any mother, and I haven't any sister; and Aunt Loo is worse than nobody, because it's provoking to have somebody round that you feel might take an interest, and ought to, and don't care a red cent for you. Well, I declare, if I'm not much,—if I'm not such a model as Miss Clayton, there,—how could any one expect it, when I have just come up by myself, first at the plantation, here, and then at that French boarding-school? I tell you what, Harry, boarding-schools are not what they're cried up to be. It's good fun, no doubt, but we never learnt anything there. That is to say, we never learnt it internally, but had it just rubbed on to us outside. A girl can't help, of course, learning something; and I've learnt just what I happened to like and couldn't help, and a deal that isn't of the most edifying nature besides."

Well! we shall see what will come!

CHAPTER VIII. OLD TIFF.

"I say, Tiff, do you think he will come, to-night?"

"Laws, laws, Missis, how can Tiff tell? I's been a gazin' out de do'. Don't see nor hear nothin'."

"It's so lonesome!—so lonesome!—and the nights so long!"

And the speaker, an emaciated, feeble little woman, turned herself uneasily on the ragged pallet where she was lying, and, twirling her slender fingers nervously, gazed up at the rough, unplastered beams above.

The room was of the coarsest and rudest cast. The hut was framed of rough pine logs, filled between the crevices with mud and straw; the floor made of rough-split planks, unevenly jointed together; the window was formed by some single panes arranged in a row where a gap had been made in one of the logs. At one end was a rude chimney of sticks, where smouldered a fire of pine-cones and brushwood, covered over with a light coat of white ashes. On the mantel over it was a shelf, which displayed sundry vials, a cracked teapot and tumbler, some medicinal-looking packages, a turkey's wing, much abridged and defaced by frequent usage, some bundles of dry herbs, and lastly a gayly-painted mug of coarse crockery-ware, containing a bunch of wild-flowers. On pegs, driven into the logs, were arranged different articles of female attire, and divers little coats and dresses, which belonged to smaller wearers, with now and then soiled and coarse articles of man's apparel.

The woman, who lay upon a coarse chaff pallet in the corner, was one who once might have been pretty. Her skin was fair, her hair soft and curling, her eyes of a beautiful blue, her hands thin and transparent as pearl. But the deep, dark circles under the eyes, the thin, white lips, the attenuated limbs, the hurried breathing, and the burning spots in the cheek, told that, whatever she might have been, she was now not long for this world.

Beside her bed was sitting an old negro, in whose close-curling wool age had began to sprinkle flecks of white. His countenance presented, physically, one of the most uncomely specimens of negro features; and would have been positively frightful, had it not been redeemed by an expression of cheerful kindliness which beamed from it. His face was of ebony blackness, with a wide, upturned nose, a mouth of portentous size, guarded by clumsy lips, revealing teeth which a shark might have envied. The only fine feature was his large, black eyes, which, at the present, were concealed by a huge pair of plated spectacles, placed very low upon his nose, and through which he was directing his sight upon a child's stocking, that he was busily darning. At his foot was a rude cradle, made of a gum-tree log, hollowed out into a trough, and wadded by various old fragments of flannel, in which slept a very young infant. Another child, of about three years of age, was sitting on the negro's knee, busily playing with some pine-cones and mosses.

The figure of the old negro was low and stooping; and he wore, pinned round his shoulders, a half-handkerchief or shawl of red flannel, arranged much as an old woman would have arranged it. One or two needles, with coarse, black thread dangling to them, were stuck in on his shoulder; and as he busily darned on the little stocking, he kept up a kind of droning intermixture of chanting and talking to the child on his knee.

"So, ho, Teddy!—bub dar!—my man!—sit still!—cause yer ma's sick, and sister's gone for medicine. Dar, Tiff'll sing to his little man.

'Christ was born in Bethlehem,

Christ was born in Bethlehem,

And in a manger laid.'

Take car, dar!—dat ar needle scratch yer little fingers!—poor little fingers! Ah, be still, now!—play wid yer pretty tings, and see what yer pa'll bring ye!"

"Oh, dear me!—well!" said the woman on the bed, "I shall give up!"

"Bress de Lord, no, missis!" said Tiff, laying down the stocking, and holding the child to him with one hand, while the other was busy in patting and arranging the bedclothes. "No use in givin' up! Why, Lord bress you, missis, we'll be all up right agin in a few days. Work has been kinder pressin', lately, and chil'ns clothes an't quite so 'speckable; but den I's doin' heaps o' mendin'. See dat ar!" said he, holding up a slip of red flannel, resplendent with a black patch, "dat ar hole won't go no furder—and it does well enough for Teddy to wear rollin' round de do', and such like times, to save his bettermost. And de way I's put de yarn in dese yer stockings an't slow. Den I's laid out to take a stitch in Teddy's shoes; and dat ar hole in de kiverlet, dat ar'll be stopped 'fore morning. Oh, let me alone!—he! he! he!—Ye didn't keep Tiff for nothing, missis—ho, ho, ho!" And the black face seemed really to become unctuous with the oil of gladness, as Tiff proceeded in his work of consolation.

"Oh, Tiff, Tiff! you're a good creature! But you don't know. Here I've been lying alone day after day, and he off, nobody knows where! And when he comes, it'll be only a day, and he's off; and all he does don't amount to anything—all miserable rubbish brought home and traded off for other rubbish. Oh, what a fool I was for being married! Oh, dear! girls little know what marriage is! I thought it was so dreadful to be an old maid, and a pretty thing to get married! But, oh, the pain, and worry, and sickness, and suffering, I've gone through!—always wandering from place to place, never settled; one thing going after another, worrying, watching, weary,—and all for nothing, for I am worn out, and I shall die!"

"Oh, Lord, no!" said Tiff, earnestly. "Lor, Tiff'll make ye some tea, and give it to ye, ye poor lamb! It's drefful hard, so 'tis; but times'll mend, and massa'll come round and be more settled, like, and Teddy will grow up and help his ma; and I'm sure dere isn't a pearter young un dan dis yer puppet!" said he, turning fondly to the trough where the little fat, red mass of incipient humanity was beginning to throw up two small fists, and to utter sundry small squeaks, to intimate his desire to come into notice.

"Lor, now," said he, adroitly depositing Teddy on the floor, and taking up the baby, whom he regarded fondly through his great spectacles; "stretch away, my pretty! stretch away! ho-e-ho! Lor, if he hasn't got his mammy's eye, for all dis worl! Ah, brave! See him, missis!" said he, laying the little bundle on the bed by her. "Did ye ever see a peartier young un? He, he, he! Dar, now, his mammy should take him, so she should! and Tiff'll make mammy some tea, so he will!" And Tiff, in a moment, was on his knees, carefully laying together the ends of the burned sticks, and blowing a cloud of white ashes, which powdered his woolly head and red shawl like snow-flakes, while Teddy was busy in pulling the needles out of some knitting-work which hung in a bag by the fire.

Tiff, having started the fire by blowing, proceeded very carefully to adjust upon it a small, black porringer of water, singing, as he did so,—

"My way is dark and cloudy,

So it is, so it is;

My way is dark and cloudy,

All de day."

Then, rising from his work, he saw that the poor, weak mother had clasped the baby to her bosom, and was sobbing very quietly. Tiff, as he stood there, with his short, square, ungainly figure, his long arms hanging out from his side like bows, his back covered by the red shawl, looked much like a compassionate tortoise standing on its hind legs. He looked pitifully at the sight, took off his glasses and wiped his eyes, and lifted up his voice in another stave:—

"But we'll join de forty tousand, by and by,

So we will, so we will.

We'll join de forty tousand, upon de golden shore,

And our sorrows will be gone forevermore, more, more."

"Bress my soul, Mas'r Teddy! now us been haulin' out de needles from Miss Fanny's work! dat ar an't purty, now! Tiff'll be 'shamed of ye, and ye do like dat when yer ma's sick! Don't ye know ye must be good, else Tiff won't tell ye no stories! Dar, now, sit down on dis yere log; dat ar's just the nicest log! plenty o' moss on it yer can be a pickin' out! Now, yer sit still dar, and don't be interruptin' yer ma."

The urchin opened a wide, round pair of blue eyes upon Tiff, looking as if he were mesmerized, and sat, with a quiet, subdued air, upon his log, while Tiff went fumbling about in a box in the corner. After some rattling, he produced a pine-knot, as the daylight was fading fast in the room, and, driving it into a crack in another log which stood by the chimney corner, he proceeded busily to light it, muttering, as he did so,—

"Want to make it more cheerful like."

Then he knelt down and blew the coals under the little porringer, which, like pine-coals in general, always sulked and looked black when somebody was not blowing them. He blew vigorously, regardless of the clouds of ashes which encircled him, and which settled even on the tips of his eyelashes, and balanced themselves on the end of his nose.

"Bress de Lord, I's dreadful strong in my breff! Lord, dey might have used me in blacksmissin! I's kep dis yer chimney a gwine dis many a day. I wonder, now, what keeps Miss Fanny out so long."

And Tiff rose up with the greatest precaution, and glancing every moment towards the bed, and almost tipping himself over in his anxiety to walk softly, advanced to the rude door, which opened with a wooden latch and string, opened it carefully, and looked out. Looking out with him, we perceive that the little hut stands alone, in the heart of a dense pine forest, which shuts it in on every side.

Tiff held the door open a few moments to listen. No sound was heard but the shivering wind, swaying and surging in melancholy cadences through the long pine-leaves,—a lonesome, wailing, uncertain sound.

"Ah! dese yer pine-trees! dey always a talkin'!" said Tiff to himself, in a sort of soliloquy. "Whisper, whisper, whisper! De Lord knows what it's all about! dey never tells folks what dey wants to know. Hark! da is Foxy, as sure as I'm a livin' sinner! Ah! dar she is!" as a quick, loud bark reverberated. "Ah, ha! Foxy! you'll bring her along!" caressing a wolfish-looking, lean cur, who came bounding through the trees.

"Ah, yer good-for-nothing! what makes yer run so fast, and leave yer missus behind ye? Hark! what's dat!"

The clear voice came carolling gayly from out the pine-trees,

"If you get there before I do—

I'm bound for the land of Canaan."

Whereupon Tiff, kindling with enthusiasm, responded,—

"Look out for me—I'm coming too—

I'm bound for the land of Canaan."

The response was followed by a gay laugh, as a childish voice shouted, from the woods,—

"Ha! Tiff, you there?"

And immediately a bold, bright, blue-eyed girl, of about eight years old, came rushing forward.

"Lors, Miss Fannie, so grad you's come! Yer ma's powerful weak dis yer arternoon!" And then, sinking his voice to a whisper, "Why, now, yer'd better b'leve her sperits isn't the best! Why, she's that bad, Miss Fannie, she actually been a cryin' when I put the baby in her arms. Railly, I'm consarned, and I wish yer pa 'ud come home. Did yer bring de medicine?"

"Ah, yes; here 'tis."

"Ah! so good! I was a makin' of her some tea, to set her up, like, and I'll put a little drop of dis yer in't. You gwin, now, and speak to yer ma, and I'll pick up a little light wood round here, and make up de fire. Massa Teddy'll be powerful glad to see yer. Hope you's got him something, too!"

The girl glided softly into the room, and stood over the bed where her mother was lying.

"Mother, I've come home," said she, gently.

The poor, frail creature in the bed seemed to be in one of those helpless hours of life's voyage, when all its waves and billows are breaking over the soul; and while the little new-comer was blindly rooting and striving at her breast, she had gathered the worn counterpane over her face, and the bed was shaken by her sobbings.

"Mother! mother! mother!" said the child, softly touching her.

"Go away! go away, child! Oh, I wish I had never been born! I wish you had never been born, nor Teddy, nor the baby! It's all nothing but trouble and sorrow! Fanny, don't you ever marry! Mind what I tell you!"

The child stood frightened by the bedside, while Tiff had softly deposited a handful of pine-wood near the fireplace, had taken off the porringer, and was busily stirring and concocting something in an old cracked china mug. As he stirred, a strain of indignation seemed to cross his generally tranquil mind, for he often gave short sniffs and grunts, indicative of extreme disgust, and muttered to himself,—

"Dis yer comes of quality marrying these yer poor white folks! Never had no 'pinion on it, no way! Ah! do hear the poor lamb now! 'nough to break one's heart!"

By this time, the stirring and flavoring being finished to his taste, he came to the side of the bed, and began, in a coaxing tone,—

"Come, now, Miss Sue, come! You's all worn out! No wonder! dat ar great fellow tugging at you! Bless his dear little soul, he's gaining half a pound a week! Nough to pull down his ma entirely! Come, now; take a little sup of this—just a little sup! Warm you up, and put a bit of life in you; and den I 'spects to fry you a morsel of der chicken, 'cause a boy like dis yer can't be nursed on slops, dat I knows! Dere, dere, honey!" said he, gently removing the babe, and passing his arm under the pillow. "I's drefful strong in the back. My arm is long and strong, and I'll raise you up just as easy! Take a good sup on it, now, and wash dese troubles down. I reckon the good man above is looking down on us all, and bring us all round right, some time."

The invalid, who seemed exhausted by the burst of feeling to which she had been giving way, mechanically obeyed a voice to which she had always been accustomed, and drank eagerly, as if with feverish thirst; and when she had done, she suddenly threw her arms around the neck of her strange attendant.

"Oh, Tiff, Tiff! poor old black, faithful Tiff! What should I have done without you? So sick as I've been, and so weak, and so lonesome! But, Tiff, it's coming to an end pretty soon. I've seen, to-night, that I an't going to live long, and I've been crying to think the children have got to live. If I could only take them all into my arms, and all lie down in the grave together, I should be so glad! I never knew what God made me for! I've never been fit for anything, nor done anything!"

Tiff seemed so utterly overcome by this appeal, his great spectacles were fairly washed down in a flood of tears, and his broad, awkward frame shook with sobs.

"Law bless you, Miss Sue, don't be talking dat ar way! Why, if de Lord should call you, Miss Sue, I can take care of the children. I can bring them up powerful, I tell ye! But you won't be a-going; you'll get better! It's just the sperits is low; and, laws, why shouldn't dey be?"

Just at this moment a loud barking was heard outside the house, together with the rattle of wheels and the tramp of horses' feet.

"Dar's massa, sure as I'm alive!" said he, hastily laying down the invalid, and arranging her pillows.

A rough voice called, "Hallo, Tiff! here with a light!"

Tiff caught the pine-knot, and ran to open the door. A strange-looking vehicle, of a most unexampled composite order, was standing before the door, drawn by a lean, one-eyed horse.

"Here, Tiff, help me out. I've got a lot of goods here. How's Sue?"

"Missis is powerful bad; been wanting to see you dis long time."

"Well, away, Tiff! take this out," indicating a long, rusty piece of stove-pipe.

"Lay this in the house; and here!" handing a cast-iron stove-door, with the latch broken.

"Law, Massa, what on earth is the use of dis yer?"

"Don't ask questions, Tiff; work away. Help me out with these boxes."

"What on arth now?" said Tiff to himself, as one rough case after another was disgorged from the vehicle, and landed in the small cabin. This being done, and orders being given to Tiff to look after the horse and equipage, the man walked into the house, with a jolly, slashing air.

"Hallo, bub!" said he, lifting the two-year-old above his head. "Hallo, Fan!" imprinting a kiss on the cheek of his girl. "Hallo, Sis!" coming up to the bed where the invalid lay, and stooping down over her. Her weak, wasted arms were thrown around his neck, and she said, with sudden animation,

"Oh, you've come at last! I thought I should die without seeing you!"

"Oh, you an't a-going to die, Sis! Why, what talk!" said he, chucking her under the chin. "Why, your cheeks are as red as roses!"

"Pa, see the baby!" said little Teddy, who, having climbed over the bed, opened the flannel bundle.

"Ah! Sis, I call that ar a tolerable fair stroke of business! Well, I tell you what, I've done up a trade now that will set us up and no mistake. Besides which, I've got something now in my coat-pocket that would raise a dead cat to life, if she was lying at the bottom of a pond, with a stone round her neck! See here! 'Dr. Puffer's Elixir of the Water of Life!' warranted to cure janders, toothache, earache, scrofula, speptia, 'sumption, and everything else that ever I hearn of! A teaspoonful of that ar, morn and night, and in a week you'll be round agin, as pert as a cricket!"

It was astonishing to see the change which the entrance of this man had wrought on the invalid. All her apprehensions seemed to have vanished. She sat up on the bed, following his every movement with her eyes, and apparently placing full confidence in the new medicine, as if it were the first time that ever a universal remedy had been proposed to her. It must be noticed, however, that Tiff, who had returned, and was building the fire, indulged himself, now and then, when the back of the speaker was turned, by snuffing at him in a particularly contemptuous manner. The man was a thick-set and not ill-looking personage, who might have been forty or forty-five years of age. His eyes, of a clear, lively brown, his close-curling hair, his high forehead, and a certain devil-may-care frankness of expression, were traits not disagreeable, and which went some way to account for the partial eagerness with which the eye of the wife followed him.

The history of the pair is briefly told. He was the son of a small farmer of North Carolina. His father, having been so unfortunate as to obtain possession of a few negroes, the whole family became ever after inspired with an intense disgust for all kinds of labor; and John, the oldest son, adopted for himself the ancient and honorable profession of a loafer. To lie idle in the sun in front of some small grog-shop, to attend horse-races, cock-fights, and gander-pullings, to flout out occasionally in a new waistcoat, bought with money which came nobody knew how, were pleasures to him all-satisfactory. He was as guiltless of all knowledge of common-school learning as Governor Berkley could desire, and far more clear of religious training than a Mahometan or a Hindoo.

In one of his rambling excursions through the country, he stopped a night at a worn-out and broken-down old plantation, where everything had run down, through many years of mismanagement and waste. There he stayed certain days, playing cards with the equally hopeful son of the place, and ended his performances by running away one night with the soft-hearted daughter, only fifteen years of age, and who was full as idle, careless, and untaught, as he.

The family, whom poverty could not teach to forget their pride, were greatly scandalized at the marriage; and, had there been anything left in the worn-out estate wherewith to portion her, the bride, nevertheless, would have been portionless. The sole piece of property that went out with her from the paternal mansion was one, who, having a mind and will of his own, could not be kept from following her. The girl's mother had come from a distant branch of one of the most celebrated families in Virginia, and Tiff had been her servant; and, with a heart forever swelling with the remembrances of the ancestral greatness of the Peytons, he followed his young mistress in her mésalliance with long-suffering devotion. He even bowed his neck so far as to acknowledge for his master a man whom he considered by position infinitely his inferior; for Tiff, though crooked and black, never seemed to cherish the slightest doubt that the whole force of the Peyton blood coursed through his veins, and that the Peyton honor was intrusted to his keeping. His mistress was a Peyton, her children were Peyton children, and even the little bundle of flannel in the gum-tree cradle was a Peyton; and as for him, he was Tiff Peyton, and this thought warmed and consoled him as he followed his poor mistress during all the steps of her downward course in the world. On her husband he looked with patronizing, civil contempt. He wished him well; he thought it proper to put the best face on all his actions; but, in a confidential hour, Tiff would sometimes raise his spectacles emphatically, and give it out, as his own private opinion, "dat dere could not be much 'spected from dat ar 'scription of people!"

In fact, the roving and unsettled nature of John Cripps's avocations and locations might have justified the old fellow's contempt. His industrial career might be defined as comprising a little of everything, and a great deal of nothing. He had begun, successively, to learn two or three trades; had half made a horse-shoe, and spoiled one or two carpenter's planes; had tried his hand at stage-driving; had raised fighting-cocks, and kept dogs for hunting negroes. But he invariably retreated from every one of his avocations, in his own opinion a much-abused man. The last device that had entered his head was suggested by the success of a shrewd Yankee peddler, who, having a lot of damaged and unsalable material to dispose of, talked him into the belief that he possessed yet an undeveloped talent for trade; and poor John Cripps, guiltless of multiplication or addition table, and who kept his cock-fighting accounts on his fingers and by making chalk-marks behind the doors, actually was made to believe that he had at last received his true vocation.

In fact, there was something in the constant restlessness of this mode of life that suited his roving turn; and, though he was constantly buying what he could not sell, and losing on all that he did sell, yet somehow he kept up an illusion that he was doing something, because stray coins now and then passed through his pockets, and because the circle of small taverns in which he could drink and loaf was considerably larger. There was one resource which never failed him when all other streams went dry; and that was the unceasing ingenuity and fidelity of the bondman Tiff.

Tiff, in fact, appeared to be one of those comfortable old creatures, who retain such a good understanding with all created nature that food never is denied them. Fish would always bite on Tiff's hook when they wouldn't on anybody's else; so that he was wont confidently to call the nearest stream "Tiff's pork-barrel." Hens always laid eggs for Tiff, and cackled to him confidentially where they were deposited. Turkeys gobbled and strutted for him, and led forth for him broods of downy little ones. All sorts of wild game, squirrels, rabbits, coons, and possums, appeared to come with pleasure and put themselves into his traps and springes; so that, where another man might starve, Tiff would look round him with unctuous satisfaction, contemplating all nature as his larder, where his provisions were wearing fur coats, and walking about on four legs, only for safe keeping till he got ready to eat them. So that Cripps never came home without anticipation of something savory, even although he had drank up his last quarter of a dollar at the tavern. This suited Cripps. He thought Tiff was doing his duty, and occasionally brought him home some unsalable bit of rubbish, by way of testimonial of the sense he entertained of his worth. The spectacles in which Tiff gloried came to him in this manner; and, although it might have been made to appear that the glasses were only plain window-glass, Tiff was happily ignorant that they were not the best of convex lenses, and still happier in the fact that his strong, unimpaired eyesight made any glasses at all entirely unnecessary. It was only an aristocratic weakness in Tiff. Spectacles he somehow considered the mark of a gentleman, and an appropriate symbol for one who had "been fetched up in the very fustest families of Old Virginny."

He deemed them more particularly appropriate, as, in addition to his manifold outward duties, he likewise assumed, as the reader has seen, some feminine accomplishments. Tiff could darn a stocking with anybody in the country; he could cut out children's dresses and aprons; he could patch, and he could seam; all which he did with infinite self-satisfaction.

Notwithstanding the many crooks and crosses in his lot, Tiff was, on the whole, a cheery fellow. He had an oily, rollicking fulness of nature, an exuberance of physical satisfaction in existence, that the greatest weight of adversity could only tone down to becoming sobriety. He was on the happiest terms of fellowship with himself; he liked himself, he believed in himself; and, when nobody else would do it, he would pat himself on his own shoulder, and say, "Tiff, you're a jolly dog, a fine fellow, and I like you!" He was seldom without a running strain of soliloquy with himself, intermingled with joyous bursts of song, and quiet intervals of laughter. On pleasant days Tiff laughed a great deal. He laughed when his beans came up, he laughed when the sun came out after a storm, he laughed for fifty things that you never think of laughing at; and it agreed with him—he throve upon it. In times of trouble and perplexity, Tiff talked to himself, and found a counsellor who always kept secrets. On the present occasion it was not without some inward discontent that he took a survey of the remains of one of his best-fatted chickens, which he had been intending to serve up, piecemeal, for his mistress. So he relieved his mind by a little confidential colloquy with himself.

"Dis yer," he said to himself, with a contemptuous inclination toward the newly-arrived, "will be for eating like a judgment, I 'pose. Wish, now, I had killed de old gobbler! Good enough for him—raal tough, he is. Dis yer, now, was my primest chicken, and dar she'll jist sit and see him eat it! Laws, dese yer women! Why, dey does get so sot on husbands! Pity they couldn't have something like to be sot on! It jist riles me to see him gobbling down everything, and she a-looking on! Well, here goes," said he, depositing the frying-pan over the coals, in which the chicken was soon fizzling. Drawing out the table, Tiff prepared it for supper. Soon coffee was steaming over the fire, and corn-dodgers baking in the ashes. Meanwhile, John Cripps was busy explaining to his wife the celebrated wares that had so much raised his spirits.

"Well, now, you see, Sue, this yer time I've been up to Raleigh; and I met a fellow there, coming from New York, or New Orleans, or some of them northern states."

"New Orleans isn't a northern state," humbly interposed his wife, "is it?"

"Well, New something! Who the devil cares? Don't you be interrupting me, you Suse!"

Could Cripps have seen the vengeful look which Tiff gave him over the spectacles at this moment, he might have trembled for his supper. But, innocent of this, he proceeded with his story.

"You see, this yer fellow had a case of bonnets just the height of the fashion. They come from Paris, the capital of Europe; and he sold them to me for a mere song. Ah, you ought to see 'em! I'm going to get 'em out. Tiff, hold the candle, here." And Tiff held the burning torch with an air of grim scepticism and disgust, while Cripps hammered and wrenched the top boards off, and displayed to view a portentous array of bonnets, apparently of every obsolete style and fashion of the last fifty years.

"Dem's fust rate for scare-crows, anyhow!" muttered Tiff.

"Now, what," said Cripps,—"Sue, what do you think I gave for these?"

"I don't know," said she, faintly.

"Well, I gave fifteen dollars for the whole box! And there an't one of these," said he, displaying the most singular specimen on his hand, "that isn't worth from two to five dollars. I shall clear, at least, fifty dollars on that box."

Tiff, at this moment, turned to his frying-pan, and bent over it, soliloquizing as he did so,—

"Any way, I's found out one ting,—where de women gets dem roosts of bonnets dey wars at camp-meetings. Laws, dey's enough to spile a work of grace, dem ar! If I was to meet one of dem ar of a dark night in a grave-yard, I should tink I was sent for—not the pleasantest way of sending, neither. Poor missis!—looking mighty faint!—Don't wonder!—'Nough to scarr a weakly woman into fits!"

"Here, Tiff, help me to open this box. Hold the light, here. Darned if it don't come off hard! Here's a lot of shoes and boots I got of the same man. Some on 'em's mates, and some an't; but, then, I took the lot cheap. Folks don't always warr both shoes alike. Might like to warr an odd one, sometimes, ef it's cheap. Now, this yer parr of boots is lady's gaiters, all complete, 'cept there's a hole in the lining down by the toe; body ought to be careful about putting it on, else the foot will slip between the outside and the lining. Anybody that bears that in mind—just as nice a pair of gaiters as they'd want! Bargain, there, for somebody—complete one, too. Then I've got two or three old bureau-drawers that I got cheap at auction; and I reckon some on 'em will fit the old frame that I got last year. Got 'em for a mere song."

"Bless you, massa, dat ar old bureau I took for de chicken-coop! Turkeys' chickens hops in lively."

"Oh, well, scrub it up—'twill answer just as well. Fit the drawers in. And now, old woman, we will sit down to supper," said he, planting himself at the table, and beginning a vigorous onslaught on the fried chicken, without invitation to any other person present to assist him.

"Missis can't sit up at the table," said Tiff. "She's done been sick ever since de baby was born." And Tiff approached the bed with a nice morsel of chicken which he had providently preserved on a plate, and which he now reverently presented on a board, as a waiter, covered with newspaper.

"Now, do eat, missis; you can't live on looking, no ways you can fix it. Do eat while Tiff gets on de baby's nightgown."

To please her old friend, the woman made a feint of eating, but, while Tiff's back was turned to the fire, busied herself with distributing it to the children, who had stood hungrily regarding her, as children will regard what is put on to a sick mother's plate.

"It does me good to see them eat," she said, apologetically once, when Tiff, turning round, detected her in the act.

"Ah, missis, may be! but you've got to eat for two, now. What dey eat an't going to dis yer little man, here. Mind dat ar."

Cripps apparently bestowed very small attention on anything except the important business before him, which he prosecuted with such devotion that very soon coffee, chicken, and dodgers, had all disappeared. Even the bones were sucked dry, and the gravy wiped from the dish.

"Ah, that's what I call comfortable!" said he, lying back in his chair. "Tiff, pull my boots off! and hand out that ar demijohn. Sue, I hope you've made a comfortable meal," he said, incidentally, standing with his back to her, compounding his potation of whiskey and water; which having drank, he called up Teddy, and offered him the sugar at the bottom of the glass. But Teddy, being forewarned by a meaning glance through Tiff's spectacles, responded, very politely,—

"No, I thank you, pa. I don't love it."

"Come here, then, and take it off like a man. It's good for you," said John Cripps.

The mother's eyes followed the child wishfully; and she said, faintly, "Don't John!—don't!" And Tiff ended the controversy by taking the glass unceremoniously out of his master's hand.

"Laws bless you, massa, can't be bodered with dese yer young ones dis yer time of night! Time dey's all in bed, and dishes washed up. Here, Tedd," seizing the child, and loosening the buttons of his slip behind, and drawing out a rough trundle-bed, "you crawl in dere, and curl up in your nest; and don't you forget your prars, honey, else maybe you'll never wake up again."

Cripps had now filled a pipe with tobacco of the most villainous character, with which incense he was perfuming the little apartment.

"Laws, massa, dat ar smoke an't good for missis," said Tiff. "She done been sick to her stomach all day."

"Oh, let him smoke! I like to have him enjoy himself," said the indulgent wife. "But, Fanny, you had better go to bed, dear. Come here and kiss me, child; good-night,—good-night!"

The mother held on to her long, and looked at her wishfully; and when she had turned to go, she drew her back, and kissed her again, and said, "Good-night, dear child, good-night!"

Fanny climbed up a ladder in one corner of the room, through a square hole, to the loft above.

"I say," said Cripps, taking his pipe out of his mouth, and looking at Tiff, who was busy washing the dishes, "I say it's kind of peculiar that gal keeps sick so. Seemed to have good constitution when I married her. I'm thinking," said he, without noticing the gathering wrath in Tiff's face, "I'm a-thinking whether steamin' wouldn't do her good. Now, I got a most dreadful cold when I was up at Raleigh—thought I should have given up; and there was a steam-doctor there. Had a little kind of machine, with kettle and pipes, and he put me in a bed, put in the pipes, and set it a-going. I thought, my soul, I should have been floated off; but it carried off the cold, complete. I'm thinking if something of that kind wouldn't be good for Miss Cripps."

"Laws, massa, don't go for to trying it on her! She is never no better for dese yer things you do for her."

"Now," said Cripps, not appearing to notice the interruption, "these yer stove-pipes, and the tea-kettle,—I shouldn't wonder if we could get up a steam with them!"

"It's my private 'pinion, if you do, she'll be sailing out of the world," said Tiff. "What's one man's meat is another one's pisin, my old mis's used to say. Very best thing you can do for her is to let her alone. Dat ar is my 'pinion."

"John," said the little woman, after a few minutes, "I wish you'd come here, and sit on the bed."

There was something positive, and almost authoritative, in the manner in which this was said, which struck John as so unusual, that he came with a bewildered air, sat down, and gazed at her with his mouth wide open.

"I'm so glad you've come home, because I have had things that I've wanted to say to you! I've been lying here thinking about it, and I have been turning it over in my mind. I'm going to die soon, I know."

"Ah! bah! Don't be bothering a fellow with any of your hysterics!"

"John, John! it isn't hysterics! Look at me! Look at my hand! look at my face! I'm so weak, and sometimes I have such coughing spells, and every time it seems to me as if I should die. But it an't to trouble you that I talk. I don't care about myself, but I don't want the children to grow up and be like what we've been. You have a great many contrivances; do, pray, contrive to have them taught to read, and make something of them in the world."

"Bah! what's the use? I never learnt to read, and I'm as good a fellow as I want. Why, there's plenty of men round here making their money, every year, that can't read or write a word. Old Hubell, there, up on the Shad plantation, has hauled in money, hand over hand, and he always signs his mark. Got nine sons—can't a soul of them read or write, more than I. I tell you there's nothing ever comes of this yer larning. It's all a sell—a regular Yankee hoax! I've always got cheated by them damn reading, writing Yankees, whenever I've traded with 'em. What's the good, I want to know! You was teached how to read when you was young—much good it's ever done you!"

"Sure enough! Sick day and night, moving about from place to place, sick baby crying, and not knowing what to do for it no more than a child! Oh, I hope Fanny will learn something! It seems to me, if there was some school for my children to go to, or some church, or something—now, if there is any such place as heaven, I should like to have them get to it."

"Ah! bah! Don't bother about that! When we get keeled up, that will be the last of us! Come, come, don't plague a fellow any more with such talk! I'm tired, and I'm going to sleep." And the man, divesting himself of his overcoat, threw himself on the bed, and was soon snoring heavily in profound slumber.

Tiff, who had been trotting the baby by the fire, now came softly to the bedside, and sat down.

"Miss Sue," he said, "it's no 'count talking to him! I don't mean nothing dis'pectful, Miss Sue, but de fac is, dem dat isn't born gentlemen can't be 'spected fur to see through dese yer things like us of de old families. Law, missis, don't you worry! Now, jest leave dis yer matter to old Tiff! Dere never wasn't anything Tiff couldn't do, if he tried. He! he! he! Miss Fanny, she done got de letters right smart; and I know I'll come it round mas'r, and make him buy de books for her. I'll tell you what's come into my head, to-day. There's a young lady come to de big plantation, up dere, who's been to New York getting edicated, and I's going for to ask her about dese yer things. And, about de chil'en's going to church, and dese yer things, why, preaching, you know, is mazin' unsartain round here; but I'll keep on de lookout, and do de best I can. Why, Lord, Miss Sue, I's bound for the land of Canaan, myself, the best way I ken; and I'm sartain I shan't go without taking the chil'en along with me. Ho! ho! ho! Dat's what I shan't! De chil'en will have to be with Tiff, and Tiff will have to be with the chil'en, wherever dey is! Dat's it! He! he! he!"

"Tiff," said the young woman, her large blue eyes looking at him, "I have heard of the Bible. Have you ever seen one, Tiff?"

"Oh, yes, honey, dar was a big Bible that your ma brought in the family when she married; but dat ar was tore up to make wadding for de guns, one thing or another, and dey never got no more. But I's been very 'serving, and kept my ears open in a camp-meeting, and such places, and I's learnt right smart of de things that's in it."

"Now, Tiff, can you say anything?" said she, fixing her large, troubled eyes on him.

"Well, honey, dere's one thing the man said at de last camp-meeting. He preached 'bout it, and I couldn't make out a word he said, 'cause I an't smart about preaching like I be about most things. But he said dis yer so often that I couldn't help 'member it. Says he, it was dish yer way: 'Come unto me, all ye labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'"

"Rest, rest, rest!" said the woman, thoughtfully, and drawing a long sigh. "Oh, how much I want it! Did he say that was in the Bible?"

"Yes, he said so; and I spects, by all he said, it's de good man above dat says it. It always makes me feel better to think on it. It 'peared like it was jist what I was wanting to hear."

"And I, too!" she said, turning her head wearily, and closing her eyes. "Tiff," she said, opening them, "where I'm going, may be I shall meet the one who said that, and I'll ask him about it. Don't talk to me more, now. I'm getting sleepy. I thought I was better a little while after he came home, but I'm more tired yet. Put the baby in my arms—I like the feeling of it. There, there; now give me rest—please do!" and she sank into a deep and quiet slumber.

Tiff softly covered the fire, and sat down by the bed, watching the flickering shadows as they danced upward on the wall, listening to the heavy sighs of the pine-trees, and the hard breathing of the sleeping man. Sometimes he nodded sleepily, and then, recovering, rose, and took a turn to awaken himself. A shadowy sense of fear fell upon him; not that he apprehended anything, for he regarded the words of his mistress only as the forebodings of a wearied invalid. The idea that she could actually die, and go anywhere, without him to take care of her, seemed never to have occurred to him. About midnight, as if a spirit had laid its hand upon him, his eyes flew wide open with a sudden start. Her thin, cold hand was lying on his; her eyes, large and blue, shone with a singular and spiritual radiance.

"Tiff," she gasped, speaking with difficulty, "I've seen the one that said that, and it's all true, too! and I've seen all why I've suffered so much. He—He—He is going to take me! Tell the children about Him!" There was a fluttering sigh, a slight shiver, and the lids fell over the eyes forever.

CHAPTER IX. THE DEATH.

Death is always sudden. However gradual may be its approaches, it is, in its effects upon the survivor, always sudden at last. Tiff thought, at first, that his mistress was in a fainting-fit, and tried every means to restore her. It was affecting to see him chafing the thin, white, pearly hands, in his large, rough, black paws; raising the head upon his arm, and calling in a thousand tones of fond endearment, pouring out a perfect torrent of loving devotion on the cold, unheeding ear. But, then, spite of all he could do, the face settled itself, and the hands would not be warmed; the thought of death struck him suddenly, and, throwing himself on the floor by the bed, he wept with an exceeding loud and bitter cry. Something in his heart revolted against awakening that man who lay heavily breathing by her side. He would not admit to himself, at this moment, that this man had any right in her, or that the sorrow was any part of his sorrow. But the cry awoke Cripps, who sat up bewildered in bed, clearing the hair from his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Tiff, what the durned are you howling about?"

Tiff got up in a moment, and, swallowing down his grief and his tears, pointed indignantly to the still figure on the bed.

"Dar! dar! Wouldn't b'lieve her last night! Now what you think of dat ar? See how you look now! Good Shepherd hearn you abusing de poor lamb, and he's done took her whar you'll never see her again!"

Cripps had, like coarse, animal men generally, a stupid and senseless horror of death;—he recoiled from the lifeless form, and sprang from the bed with an expression of horror.

"Well, now, who would have thought it?" he said. "That I should be in bed with a corpse! I hadn't the least idea!"

"No, dat's plain enough, you didn't! You'll believe it now, won't you? Poor little lamb, lying here suffering all alone! I tell you, when folks have been sick so long, dey has to die to make folks believe anything ails 'em!"

"Well, really," said Cripps, "this is really—why, it an't comfortable! darned if it is! Why, I'm sorry about the gal! I meant to steam her up, or done something with her. What's we to do now?"

"Pretty likely you don't know! Folks like you, dat never tends to nothing good, is always flustered when de Master knocks at de do'! I knows what to do, though. I's boun' to get up de crittur, and go up to de old plantation, and bring down a woman and do something for her, kind of decent. You mind the chil'en till I come back."

Tiff took down and drew on over his outer garment a coarse, light, woollen coat, with very long skirts and large buttons, in which he always arrayed himself in cases of special solemnity. Stopping at the door before he went out, he looked over Cripps from head to foot, with an air of patronizing and half-pitiful contempt, and delivered himself as follows:

"Now, mas'r, I's gwine up, and will be back quick as possible; and now do pray be decent, and let dat ar whiskey alone for one day in your life, and 'member death, judgment, and 'ternity. Just act, now, as if you'd got a streak of something in you, such as a man ought for to have who is married to one of de very fustest families in old Virginny. 'Flect, now, on your latter end; may be will do your poor old soul some good; and don't you go for to waking up the chil'en before I gets back. They'll learn de trouble soon enough."

Cripps listened to this oration with a stupid, bewildered stare, gazing first at the bed, and then at the old man, who was soon making all the speed he could towards Canema.

Nina was not habitually an early riser, but on this morning she had awaked with the first peep of dawn, and, finding herself unable to go to sleep again, she had dressed herself, and gone down to the garden.

She was walking up and down in one of the alleys, thinking over the perplexities of her own affairs, when her ear was caught by the wild and singular notes of one of those tunes commonly used among the slaves as dirges. The words "She ar dead and gone to heaven" seemed to come floating down upon her; and, though the voice was cracked and strained, there was a sort of wildness and pathos in it, which made a singular impression in the perfect stillness of everything around her. She soon observed a singular-looking vehicle appearing in the avenue.

This wagon, which was no other than the establishment of Cripps, drew Nina's attention, and she went to the hedge to look at it. Tiff's watchful eye immediately fell upon her, and, driving up to where she was standing, he climbed out upon the ground, and, lifting his hat, made her a profound obeisance, and "hoped de young lady was bery well, dis morning."

"Yes, quite well, thank you, Uncle," said Nina, regarding him curiously.

"We's in 'fliction to our house!" said Tiff, solemnly. "Dere's been a midnight cry dere, and poor Miss Sue (dat's my young missis), she's done gone home."

"Who is your mistress?"

"Well, her name was Seymour 'fore she married, and her ma come from de Virginny Peytons,—great family, dem Peytons! She was so misfortunate as to get married, as gals will, sometimes," said Tiff, speaking in a confidential tone. "The man wan't no 'count, and she's had a drefful hard way to travel, poor thing! and dere she's a lying at last stretched out dead, and not a woman nor nobody to do de least thing; and please, missis, Tiff comed for to see if de young lady wouldn't send a woman for to do for her—getting her ready for a funeral."

"And who are you, pray?"

"Please, missis, I's Tiff Peyton, I is. I's raised in Virginny, on de great Peyton place, and I's gin to Miss Sue's mother; and when Miss Sue married dis yer man, dey was all 'fended, and wouldn't speak to her; but I tuck up for her, 'cause what's de use of makin' a bad thing worse? I's a 'pinion, and telled 'em, dat he oughter be 'couraged to behave hisself, seein' the thing was done, and couldn't be helped. But no, dey wouldn't; so I jest tells 'em, says I, 'You may do jis you please, but old Tiff's a gwine with her,' says I. 'I'll follow Miss Sue to de grave's mouth,' says I; and ye see I has done it."

"Well done of you! I like you better for it," said Nina. "You just drive up to the kitchen, there, and tell Rose to give you some breakfast, while I go up to Aunt Nesbit."

"No, thank you, Miss Nina, I's noways hungry. 'Pears like, when a body's like as I be, swallerin' down, and all de old times risin' in der throat all de time, dey can't eat; dey gets filled all up to der eyes with feelin's. Lord, Miss Nina, I hope ye won't never know what 'tis to stand outside de gate, when de best friend you've got's gone in; it's hard, dat ar is!" And Tiff pulled out a decayed-looking handkerchief, and applied it under his spectacles.

"Well, wait a minute, Tiff." And Nina ran into the house, while Tiff gazed mournfully after her.

"Well, Lor; just de way Miss Sue used to run—trip, trip, trip!—little feet like mice! Lord's will be done!"

"Oh, Milly!" said Nina, meeting Milly in the entry, "here you are. Here's a poor fellow waiting out by the hedge, his mistress dead all alone in the house, with children,—no woman to do for them. Can't you go down? you could do so well! You know how better than any one else in the house."

"Why, that must be poor old Tiff!" said Milly; "faithful old creature! So that poor woman's gone, at last? the better for her, poor soul! Well, I'll ask Miss Loo if I may go—or you ask her, Miss Nina."

A quick, imperative tap on her door startled Aunt Nesbit, who was standing at her toilet, finishing her morning's dressing operations.

Mrs. Nesbit was a particularly systematic early riser. Nobody knew why; only folks who have nothing to do are often the most particular to have the longest possible time to do it in.

"Aunt," said Nina, "there's a poor fellow, out here, whose mistress is just dead, all alone in the house, and wants to get some woman to go there to help. Can't you spare Milly?"

"Milly was going to clear-starch my caps, this morning," said Aunt Nesbit. "I have arranged everything with reference to it, for a week past."

"Well, aunt, can't she do it to-morrow, or next day, just as well?"

"To-morrow she is going to rip up that black dress, and wash it. I am always systematic, and have everything arranged beforehand. Should like very much to do anything I could, if it wasn't for that. Why can't you send Aunt Katy?"

"Why, aunt, you know we are to have company to dinner, and Aunt Katy is the only one who knows where anything is, or how to serve things out to the cook. Besides, she's so hard and cross to poor people, I don't think she would go. I don't see, I'm sure, in such a case as this, why you couldn't put your starching off. Milly is such a kind, motherly, experienced person, and they are in affliction."

"Oh, these low families don't mind such things much," said Aunt Nesbit, fitting on her cap, quietly; "they never have much feeling. There's no use doing for them—they are miserable poor creatures."

"Aunt Nesbit, do, now, as a favor to me! I don't often ask favors," said Nina. "Do let Milly go! she's just the one wanted. Do, now, say yes!" And Nina pressed nearer, and actually seemed to overpower her slow-feeling, torpid relative, with the vehemence that sparkled in her eyes.

"Well, I don't care, if"—

"There, Milly, she says yes!" said she, springing out the door. "She says you may. Now, hurry; get things ready. I'll run and have Aunt Katy put up biscuits and things for the children; and you get all that you know you will want, and be off quick, and I'll have the pony got up, and come on behind you."

CHAPTER X. THE PREPARATION.

The excitement produced by the arrival of Tiff, and the fitting out of Milly to the cottage, had produced a most favorable diversion in Nina's mind from her own especial perplexities.

Active and buoyant, she threw herself at once into whatever happened to come uppermost on the tide of events. So, having seen the wagon dispatched, she sat down to breakfast in high spirits.

"Aunt Nesbit, I declare I was so interested in that old man! I intend to have the pony, after breakfast, and ride over there."

"I thought you were expecting company."

"Well, that's one reason, now, why I'd like to be off. Do I want to sit all primmed up, smiling and smirking, and running to the window to see if my gracious lord is coming? No, I won't do that, to please any of them. If I happen to fancy to be out riding, I will be out riding."

"I think," said Aunt Nesbit, "that the hovels of these miserable creatures are no proper place for a young lady of your position in life."

"My position in life! I don't see what that has to do with it. My position in life enables me to do anything I please—a liberty which I take pretty generally. And, then, really, I couldn't help feeling rather sadly about it, because that Old Tiff, there (I believe that's his name), told me that the woman had been of a good Virginia family. Very likely she may have been just such another wild girl as I am, and thought as little about bad times, and of dying, as I do. So I couldn't help feeling sad for her. It really came over me when I was walking in the garden. Such a beautiful morning as it was—the birds all singing, and the dew all glittering and shining on the flowers! Why, aunt, the flowers really seemed alive; it seemed as though I could hear them breathing, and hear their hearts beating like mine. And, all of a sudden, I heard the most wild, mournful singing, over in the woods. It wasn't anything very beautiful, you know, but it was so wild, and strange! 'She is dead and gone to heaven!—she is dead and gone to heaven!' And pretty soon I saw the funniest old wagon—I don't know what to call it—and this queer old black man in it, with an old white hat and surtout on, and a pair of great, funny-looking spectacles on his nose. I went to the fence to see who he was; and he came up and spoke to me, made the most respectful bow—you ought to have seen it! And then, poor fellow, he told me how his mistress was lying dead, with the children around her, and nobody in the house! The poor old creature, he actually cried, and I felt so for him! He seemed to be proud of his dead mistress, in spite of her poverty."

"Where do they live?" said Mrs. Nesbit.

"Why, he told me over in the pine woods, near the swamp."

"Oh," said Mrs. Nesbit, "I dare say it's that Cripps family, that's squatted in the pine woods. A most miserable set—all of them liars and thieves! If I had known who it was, I'm sure I shouldn't have let Milly go over. Such families oughtn't to be encouraged; there oughtn't a thing to be done for them; we shouldn't encourage them to stay in the neighborhood. They always will steal from off the plantations, and corrupt the negroes, and get drunk, and everything else that's bad. There's never a woman of decent character among them, that ever I heard of; and, if you were my daughter, I shouldn't let you go near them."

"Well, I'm not your daughter, thank fortune!" said Nina, whose graces always rapidly declined in controversies with her aunt, "and so I shall do as I please. And I don't know what you pious people talk so for; for Christ went with publicans and sinners, I'm sure."

"Well," said Aunt Nesbit, "the Bible says we mustn't cast pearls before swine; and, when you've lived to be as old as I am, you'll know more than you do now. Everybody knows that you can't do anything with these people. You can't give them Bibles nor tracts; for they can't read. I've tried it, sometimes, visiting them, and talking to them; but it didn't do them any good. I always thought there ought to be a law passed to make 'em all slaves, and then there would be somebody to take care of them."

"Well, I can't see," said Nina, "how it's their fault. There isn't any school where they could send their children, if they wanted to learn; and, then, if they want to work, there's nobody who wants to hire them. So, what can they do?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Aunt Nesbit, in that tone which generally means I don't care. "All I know is, that I want them to get away from the neighborhood. Giving to them is just like putting into a bag with holes. I'm sure I put myself to a great inconvenience on their account to-day; for, if there's anything I do hate, it is having things irregular. And to-day is the day for clear-starching the caps—and such a good, bright, sunny day!—and to-morrow, or any other day of the week, it may rain. Always puts me all out to have things that I've laid out to do put out of their regular order. I'd been willing enough to have sent over some old things; but why they must needs take Milly's time, just as if the funeral couldn't have got ready without her! These funerals are always miserable drunken times with them! And, then, who knows, she may catch the small-pox, or something or other. There's never any knowing what these people die of."

"They die of just such things as we do," said Nina. "They have that in common with us, at any rate."

"Yes; but there's no reason for risking our lives, as I know of—especially for such people—when it don't do any good."

"Why, aunt, what do you know against these folks? Have you ever known of their doing anything wicked?"

"Oh, I don't know that I know anything against this family in particular; but I know the whole race. These squatters—I've know them ever since I was a girl in Virginia. Everybody that knows anything knows exactly what they are. There isn't any help for them, unless, as I said before, they were made slaves; and then they could be kept decent. You may go to see them, if you like, but I don't want my arrangements to be interfered with on their account."

Mrs. Nesbit was one of those quietly-persisting people, whose yielding is like the stretching of an India-rubber band, giving way only to a violent pull, and going back to the same place when the force is withdrawn. She seldom refused favors that were urged with any degree of importunity; not because her heart was touched, but simply because she seemed not to have force enough to refuse; and whatever she granted was always followed by a series of subdued lamentations over the necessity which had wrung them from her.

Nina's nature was so vehement and imperious, when excited, that it was a disagreeable fatigue to cross her. Mrs. Nesbit, therefore, made amends by bemoaning herself as we have seen. Nina started up, hastily, on seeing her pony brought round to the door; and, soon arrayed in her riding-dress, she was cantering through the pine woods in high spirits. The day was clear and beautiful. The floor of the woodland path was paved with a thick and cleanly carpet of the fallen pine-leaves. And Harry was in attendance with her, mounted on another horse, and riding but a very little behind; not so much so but what his mistress could, if she would, keep up a conversation with him.

"You know this Old Tiff, Harry?"

"Oh, yes, very well. A very good, excellent creature, and very much the superior of his master, in most respects."

"Well, he says his mistress came of a good family."

"I shouldn't wonder," said Harry. "She always had a delicate appearance, very different from people in their circumstances generally. The children, too, are remarkably pretty, well-behaved children; and it's a pity they couldn't be taught something, and not grow up and go on these miserable ways of these poor whites!"

"Why don't anybody ever teach them?" said Nina.

"Well, Miss Nina, you know how it is: everybody has his own work and business to attend to—there are no schools for them to go to—there's no work for them to do. In fact, there don't seem to be any place for them in society. Boys generally grow up to drink and swear. And, as for girls, they are of not much account. So it goes on from generation to generation."

"This is so strange, and so different from what it is in the northern states! Why, all the children go to school there—the very poorest people's children! Why, a great many of the first men, there, were poor children! Why can't there be some such thing here?"

"Oh, because people are settled in such a scattering way they can't have schools. All the land that's good for any thing is taken up for large estates. And, then, these poor folks that are scattered up and down in between, it's nobody's business to attend to them, and they can't attend to themselves; and so they grow up, and nobody knows how they live, and everybody seems to think it a pity they are in the world. I've seen those sometimes that would be glad to do something, if they could find anything to do. Planters don't want them on their places—they'd rather have their own servants. If one of them wants to be a blacksmith, or a carpenter, there's no encouragement. Most of the large estates have their own carpenters and blacksmiths. And there's nothing for them to do, unless it is keeping dogs to hunt negroes; or these little low stores where they sell whiskey, and take what's stolen from the plantations. Sometimes a smart one gets a place as overseer on a plantation. Why, I've heard of their coming so low as actually to sell their children to traders, to get a bit of bread."

"What miserable creatures! But do you suppose it can be possible that a woman of any respectable family can have married a man of this sort?"

"Well, I don't know, Miss Nina; that might be. You see, good families sometimes degenerate; and when they get too poor to send their children off to school, or keep any teachers for them, they run down very fast. This man is not bad-looking, and he really is a person who, if he had had any way opened to him, might have been a smart man, and made something of himself and family; and when he was young and better-looking, I shouldn't wonder if an uneducated girl, who had never been off a plantation, might have liked him; he was fully equal, I dare say, to her brothers. You see, Miss Nina, when money goes, in this part of the country, everything goes with it; and when a family is not rich enough to have everything in itself, it goes down very soon."

"At any rate, I pity the poor things," said Nina. "I don't despise them, as Aunt Nesbit does."

Here Nina, observing the path clear and uninterrupted for some distance under the arching pines, struck her horse into a canter, and they rode on for some distance without speaking. Soon the horse's feet splashed and pattered on the cool, pebbly bottom of a small, shallow stream, which flowed through the woods. This stream went meandering among the pines like a spangled ribbon, sometimes tying itself into loops, leaving open spots—almost islands of green—graced by its waters. Such a little spot now opened to the view of the two travellers. It was something less than a quarter of an acre in extent, entirely surrounded by the stream, save only a small neck of about four feet, which connected it to the main-land.

Here a place had been cleared and laid off into a garden, which, it was evident, was carefully tended. The log-cabin which stood in the middle was far from having the appearance of wretchedness which Nina had expected. It was almost entirely a dense mass of foliage, being covered with the intermingled drapery of the Virginia creeper and the yellow jessamine. Two little borders, each side of the house, were blooming with flowers. Around the little island the pine-trees closed in unbroken semicircle, and the brook meandered away through them, to lose itself eventually in that vast forest of swampy land which girdles the whole Carolina shore. The whole air of the place was so unexpectedly inviting, in its sylvan stillness and beauty, that Nina could not help checking her horse, and exclaiming,—

"I'm sure, it's a pretty place. They can't be such very forsaken people, after all."

"Oh, that's all Tiff's work," said Harry. "He takes care of everything outside and in, while the man is off after nobody knows what. You'd be perfectly astonished to see how that old creature manages. He sews, and he knits, and works the garden, does the house-work, and teaches the children. It's a fact! You'll notice that they haven't the pronunciation or the manners of these wild white children; and I take it to be all Tiff's watchfulness, for that creature hasn't one particle of selfishness in him. He just identifies himself with his mistress and her children."

By this time Tiff had perceived their approach, and came out to assist them in dismounting.

"De Lord above bless you, Miss Gordon, for coming to see my poor missis! Ah! she is lying dere just as beautiful, just as she was the very day she was married! All her young looks come back to her; and Milly, she done laid her out beautiful! Lord, I's wanting somebody to come and look at her, because she has got good blood, if she be poor. She is none of your common sort of poor whites, Miss Nina. Just come in; come in, and look at her."

Nina stepped into the open door of the hut. The bed was covered with a clean white sheet, and the body, arrayed in a long white night-dress brought by Milly, lay there so very still, quiet, and life-like, that one could scarcely realize the presence of death. The expression of exhaustion, fatigue, and anxiety, which the face had latterly worn, had given place to one of tender rest, shaded by a sort of mysterious awe, as if the closed eyes were looking on unutterable things. The soul, though sunk below the horizon of existence, had thrown back a twilight upon the face radiant as that of the evening heavens.

By the head of the bed the little girl was sitting, dressed carefully, and her curling hair parted in front, apparently fresh from the brush; and the little boy was sitting beside her, his round blue eyes bearing an expression of subdued wonder.

Cripps was sitting at the foot of the bed, evidently much the worse for liquor; for, spite of the exhortation of Tiff, he had applied to the whiskey-jug immediately on his departure. Why not? He was uncomfortable—gloomy; and every one, under such circumstances, naturally inclines towards some source of consolation. He who is intellectual reads and studies; he who is industrious flies to business; he who is affectionate seeks friends; he who is pious, religion; but he who is none of these—what has he but his whiskey? Cripps made a stupid, staring inclination toward Nina and Harry, as they entered, and sat still, twirling his thumbs and muttering to himself.

The sunshine fell through the panes on the floor, and there came floating in from without the odor of flowers and the song of birds. All the Father's gentle messengers spoke of comfort; but he as a deaf man heard not—as a blind man did not regard. For the rest, an air of neatness had been imparted to the extreme poverty of the room by the joint efforts of Milly and Tiff.

Tiff entered softly, and stood by Nina, as she gazed. He had in his hand several sprays of white jessamine, and he laid one on the bosom of the dead.

"She had a hard walk of it," he said, "but she's got home! Don't she look peaceful?—poor lamb!"

The little, thoughtless, gay coquette had never looked on a sight like this before. She stood with a fixed, tender thoughtfulness, unlike her usual gayety, her riding-hat hanging carelessly by its strings from her hands, her loose hair drooping over her face.

She heard some one entering the cottage, but she did not look up. She was conscious of some one looking over her shoulder, and thought it was Harry.

"Poor thing! how young she looks," she said, "to have had so much trouble!" Her voice trembled, and a tear stood in her eye. There was a sudden movement; she looked up, and Clayton was standing by her.

She looked surprised, and the color deepened in her cheek, but was too ingenuously and really in sympathy with the scene before her even to smile. She retained his hand a moment, and turned to the dead, saying, in an under-tone, "See here!"

"I see," he said. "Can I be of service?"

"The poor thing died last night," said Nina. "I suppose some one might help about a funeral. Harry," she said, walking softly towards the door, and speaking low, "you provide a coffin; have it made neatly."

"Uncle," she said, motioning Tiff towards her, "where would they have her buried?"

"Buried?" said Tiff. "O Lord! buried!" And he covered his face with his hard hands, and the tears ran through his fingers.

"Lord, Lord! Well, it must come, I know, but 'pears like I couldn't! Laws, she's so beautiful! Don't, to-day! don't!"

"Indeed, Uncle," said Nina, tenderly, "I'm sorry I grieved you; but you know, poor fellow, that must come."

"I's known her ever since she's dat high!" said Tiff. "Her har was curly, and she used to war such pretty red shoes, and come running after me in de garden. 'Tiff, Tiff,' she used to say—and dar she is now, and troubles brought her dar! Lord, what a pretty gal she was! Pretty as you be, Miss Nina. But since she married dat ar," pointing with his thumb over his shoulder, and speaking confidentially, "everything went wrong. I's held her up—did all I could; and now here she is!"

"Perhaps," said Nina, laying her hand on his, "perhaps she's in a better place than this."

"Oh, Lord, dat she is! She told me dat when she died. She saw de Lord at last,—she did so! Dem's her last words. 'Tiff,' she says, 'I see Him, and He will give me rest. Tiff,' she says,—I'd been asleep, you know, and I kinder felt something cold on my hand, and I woke up right sudden, and dar she was, her eyes so bright, looking at me and breathing so hard; and all she says was, 'Tiff, I've seen Him, and I know now why I've suffered so; He's gwine to take me, and give me rest!'"

"Then, my poor fellow, you ought to rejoice that she is safe."

"'Deed I does," said Tiff; "yet I's selfish. I wants to be dere too, I does—only I has de chil'en to care for."

"Well, my good fellow," said Nina, "we must leave you now. Harry will see about a coffin for your poor mistress; and whenever the funeral is to be, our carriage will come over, and we will all attend."

"Lord bless you, Miss Gordon! Dat ar too good on ye! My heart's been most broke, tinking nobody cared for my poor young mistress! you's too good, dat you is!"

Then, drawing near to her, and sinking his voice, he said: "'Bout de mourning, Miss Nina. He an't no 'count, you know—body can see how 'tis with him very plain. But missis was a Peyton, you know; and I's a Peyton, too. I naturally feels a 'sponsibility he couldn't be 'spected fur to. I's took de ribbons off of Miss Fanny's bonnet, and done de best I could trimming it up with black crape what Milly gave me; and I's got a band of black crape on Master Teddy's hat; and I 'lowed to put one on mine, but there wasn't quite enough. You know, missis, old family servants always wars mourning. If missis just be pleased to look over my work! Now, dis yer is Miss Fanny's bonnet. You know I can't be 'spected for to make it like a milliner."

"They are very well indeed, Uncle Tiff."

"Perhaps, Miss Nina, you can kind of touch it over."

"Oh, if you like, Uncle Tiff, I'll take them all home, and do them for you."

"The Lord bless you, Miss Gordon! Dat ar was just what I wanted, but was most 'fraid to ask you. Some gay young ladies doesn't like to handle black."

"Ah! Uncle Tiff, I've no fears of that sort; so put it in the wagon, and let Milly take it home."

So saying, she turned and passed out of the door where Harry was standing holding the horses. A third party might have seen, by the keen, rapid glance with which his eye rested upon Clayton, that he was measuring the future probability which might make him the arbiter of his own destiny—the disposer of all that was dear to him in life. As for Nina, although the day before a thousand fancies and coquetries would have colored the manner of her meeting Clayton, yet now she was so impressed by what she had witnessed, that she scarcely appeared to know that she had met him. She placed her pretty foot on his hand, and let him lift her on to the saddle, scarcely noticing the act, except by a serious, graceful inclination of her head.

One great reason of the ascendency which Clayton had thus far gained over her, was that his nature, so quiet, speculative, and undemonstrative, always left her such perfect liberty to follow the more varying moods of her own. A man of a different mould would have sought to awake her out of the trance—would have remarked on her abstracted manner, or rallied her on her silence. Clayton merely mounted his horse and rode quietly by her side, while Harry, passing on before them, was soon out of sight.

CHAPTER XI. THE LOVERS.

They rode on in silence, till their horses' feet again clattered in the clear, pebbly water of the stream. Here Nina checked her horse; and, pointing round the circle of pine forests, and up the stream, overhung with bending trees and branches, said:

"Hush!—listen!" Both stopped, and heard the swaying of the pine-trees, the babble of the waters, the cawing of distant crows, and the tapping of the woodpecker.

"How beautiful everything is!" she said. "It seems to me so sad that people must die! I never saw anybody dead before, and you don't know how it makes me feel! To think that that poor woman was just such a girl as I am, and used to be just so full of life, and never thought any more than I do that she should lie there all cold and dead! Why is it things are made so beautiful, if we must die?"

"Remember what you said to the old man, Miss Nina. Perhaps she sees more beautiful things, now."

"In heaven? Yes; I wish we knew more about heaven, so that it would seem natural and home-like to us, as this world does. As for me, I can't feel that I ever want to leave this world—I enjoy living so much! I can't forget how cold her hand was! I never felt anything like that cold!"

In all the varying moods of Nina, Clayton had never seen anything that resembled this. But he understood the peculiar singleness and earnestness of nature which made any one idea, or impression, for a time absolute in her mind. They turned their horses into the wood-path, and rode on in silence.

"Do you know," said she, "it's such a change coming from New York to live here? Everything is so unformed, so wild, and so lonely! I never saw anything so lonesome as these woods are. Here you can ride miles and miles, hours and hours, and hear nothing but the swaying of the pine-trees, just as you hear it now. Our place (you never were there, were you?) stands all by itself, miles from any other; and I've been for so many years used to a thickly-settled country, that it seems very strange to me. I can't help thinking things look rather deserted and desolate, here. It makes me rather sober and sad. I don't know as you'll like the appearance of our place. A great many things are going to decay about it; and yet there are some things that can't decay; for papa was very fond of trees and shrubbery, and we have a good deal more of them than usual. Are you fond of trees?"

"Yes; I'm almost a tree-worshipper. I have no respect for a man who can't appreciate a tree. The only good thing I ever heard of Xerxes was, that he was so transported with the beauty of a plane-tree, that he hung it with chains of gold. This is a little poetical island in the barbarism of those days."

"Xerxes!" said Nina. "I believe I studied something about him in that dismal, tedious history at Madame Ardaine's; but nothing so interesting as that, I'm sure. But what should he hang gold chains on a tree for?"

"'Twas the best way he knew of expressing his good opinion."

"Do you know," said Nina, half checking her horse, suddenly, "that I never had the least idea that these men were alive that we read about in these histories, or that they had any feelings like ours? We always studied the lessons, and learnt the hard names, and how forty thousand were killed on one side, and fifty thousand on the other; and we don't know any more about it than if we never had. That's the way we girls studied at school, except a few 'poky' ones, who wanted to be learned, or meant to be teachers."

"An interesting résumé, certainly," said Clayton, laughing.

"But how strange it is," said Nina, "to think that all those folks we read about are alive now, doing something somewhere; and I get to wondering where they are—Xerxes, and Alexander, and the rest of them. Why, they were so full of life they kept everything in commotion while in this world; and I wonder if they have been keeping a going ever since. Perhaps Xerxes has been looking round at our trees—nobody knows. But here we are coming now to the beginning of our grounds. There, you see that holly-hedge! Mamma had that set out. She travelled in England, and liked the hedges there so much that she thought she would see what could be done with our American holly. So she had these brought from the woods, and planted. You see it all grows wild, now, because it hasn't been cut for many years. And this live-oak avenue my grandfather set out. It's my pride and delight."

As she spoke, a pair of broad gates swung open, and they cantered in beneath the twilight arches of the oaks. Long wreaths of pearly moss hung swinging from the branches, and, although the sun now was at high noon, a dewy, dreamy coolness seemed to rustle through all the leaves. As Clayton passed in, he took off his hat, as he had often done in foreign countries in cathedrals.

"Welcome to Canema!" said she, riding up to him, and looking up frankly into his face.

The air, half queenly, half childish, with which this was said, was acknowledged by Clayton with a grave smile, as he replied, bowing,—

"Thank you, madam."

"Perhaps," she added, in a grave tone, "you'll be sorry that you ever came here."

"What do you mean by that?" he replied.

"I don't know; it just came into my head to say it. We none of us ever know what's going to come of what we do."

At this instant, a violent clamor, like the cawing of a crow, rose on one side of the avenue; and the moment after Tomtit appeared, caricoling, and cutting a somerset; his curls flying, his cheeks glowing.

"Why, Tomtit, what upon earth is this for?" said Nina.

"Laws, missis, deres been a gen'elman waiting for you at the house these two hours. And missis, she's done got on her best cap, and gone down in the parlor for him."

Nina felt herself blush to the roots of her hair, and was vexed and provoked to think she did so. Involuntarily her eyes met Clayton's. But he expressed neither curiosity nor concern.

"What a pretty drapery this light moss makes!" said he. "I wasn't aware that it grew so high up in the state."

"Yes; it is very pretty," said Nina, abstractedly.

Clayton, however, had noticed both the message and the blush, and was not so ill-informed as Nina supposed as to the whole affair, having heard from a New York correspondent of the probability that an arrival might appear upon the field about this time. He was rather curious to watch the development produced by this event. They paced up the avenue, conversing in disconnected intervals, till they came out on the lawn which fronted the mansion—a large, gray, three-story building, surrounded on the four sides by wide balconies of wood. Access was had to the lower of these by a broad flight of steps. And there Nina saw, plain enough, her Aunt Nesbit in all the proprieties of cap and silk gown, sitting, making the agreeable to Mr. Carson.

Mr. Frederic Augustus Carson was one of those nice little epitomes of conventional society, which appear to such advantage in factitious life, and are so out of place in the undress, sincere surroundings of country life. Nina had liked his society extremely well in the drawing-rooms and opera-houses of New York. But, in the train of thought inspired by the lonely and secluded life she was now leading, it seemed to her an absolute impossibility that she could, even in coquetry and in sport, have allowed such an one to set up pretensions to her hand and heart. She was vexed with herself that she had done so, and therefore not in the most amiable mood for a meeting. Therefore, when, on ascending the steps, he rushed precipitately forward, and, offering his hand, called her Nina, she was ready to die with vexation. She observed, too, a peculiar swelling and rustling of Aunt Nesbit's plumage,—an indescribable air of tender satisfaction, peculiar to elderly ladies who are taking an interest in an affair of the heart, which led her to apprehend that the bachelor had commenced operations by declaring his position to her. 'Twas with some embarrassment that Nina introduced Mr. Clayton, whom Aunt Nesbit received with a most stately curtsey, and Mr. Carson with a patronizing bow.

"Mr. Carson has been waiting for you these two hours," said Aunt Nesbit.

"Very warm riding, Nina," said Mr. Carson, observing her red cheeks. "You've been riding too fast, I fear. You must be careful of yourself. I've known people bring on very grave illnesses by over-heating the blood!"

Clayton seated himself near the door, and seemed to be intent on the scene without. And Carson, drawing his chair close to Nina, asked, in a confidential under-tone,—

"Who is that gentleman?"

"Mr. Clayton, of Claytonville," said Nina, with as much hauteur as she could assume.

"Ah, yes!—Hem!—hem! I've heard of the family—a very nice family—a very worthy young man—extremely, I'm told. Shall be happy to make his acquaintance."

"I beg," said Nina, rising, "the gentlemen will excuse me a moment or two."

Clayton replied by a grave bow, while Mr. Carson, with great empressement, handed Nina to the door. The moment it was closed, she stamped, with anger, in the entry.

"The provoking fool! to take these airs with me! And I, too—I deserve it! What on earth could make me think I could tolerate that man?"

As if Nina's cup were not yet full, Aunt Nesbit followed her to her chamber with an air of unusual graciousness.

"Nina, my dear, he has told me all about it! and I assure you I'm very much pleased with him!"

"Told you all about what?" said Nina.

"Why, your engagement, to be sure! I'm delighted to think you've done so well! I think your Aunt Maria, and all of them, will be delighted! Takes a weight of care off my mind!"

"I wish you wouldn't trouble yourself about me, or my affairs, Aunt Nesbit!" said Nina. "And, as for this old pussy-cat, with his squeaking boots, I won't have him purring round me, that's certain! So provoking, to take that way towards me! Call me Nina, and talk as though he were lord paramount of me, and everything here! I'll let him know!"

"Why, Nina! Seems to me this is very strange conduct! I am very much astonished at you!"

"I dare say you are, aunt! I never knew the time I didn't astonish you! But this man I detest!"

"Well, then, my dear, what were you engaged to him for?"

"Engaged! Aunt, for pity's sake, do hush! Engaged! I should like to know what a New York engagement amounts to! Engaged at the opera!—Engaged for a joke! Why, he was my bouquet-holder! The man is just an opera libretto! He was very useful in his time. But who wants him afterwards?"

"But, my dear Nina, this trifling with gentlemen's hearts!"

"I'll warrant his heart! It's neither sugar nor salt, I'll assure you. I'll tell you what, aunt, he loves good eating, good drinking, nice clothes, nice houses, and good times generally! and he wants a pretty wife as a part of a whole; and he thinks he'll take me. But he is mistaken. Calling me 'Nina,' indeed! Just let me have a chance of seeing him alone! I'll teach him to call me 'Nina'! I'll let him know how things stand!"

"But, Nina, you must confess you've given him occasion for all this."

"Well, supposing I have? I'll give him occasion for something else, then!"

"Why, my dear," said Aunt Nesbit, "he came on to know when you'll fix the day to be married!"

"Married! Oh, my gracious! Just think of the creature's talking about it! Well, it is my fault, as you say; but I'll do the best I can to mend it."

"Well, I'm really sorry for him," said Aunt Nesbit.

"You are, aunt? Why don't you take him yourself, then? You are as young and good-looking as he is."

"Nina, how you talk!" said Aunt Nesbit, coloring and bridling. "There was a time when I wasn't bad-looking, to be sure; but that's long since past."

"Oh, that's because you always dress in stone-color and drab," said Nina, as she stood brushing and arranging her curls. "Come, now, and go down, aunt, and do the best you can till I make my appearance. After all, as you say, I'm the most to blame. There's no use in being vexed with the old soul. So, aunt, do be as fascinating as you can; see if you can't console him. Only remember how you used to turn off lovers, when you were of my age."

"And who is this other gentleman, Nina?"

"Oh, nothing, only he is a friend of mine. A very good man—good enough for a minister, any day, aunt, and not so stupid as good people generally are, either."

"Well, perhaps you are engaged to him?"

"No, I am not; that is to say, I won't be to anybody. This is an insufferable business! I like Mr. Clayton, because he can let me alone, don't look at me in that abominably delighted way all the time, and dance about, calling me Nina! He and I are very good friends, that's all. I'm not going to have any engagements anywhere."

"Well, Nina, I'll go down, and you make haste."

While the gentlemen and Aunt Nesbit were waiting in the saloon, Carson made himself extremely happy and at home. It was a large, cool apartment, passing, like a hall, completely through the centre of the house. Long French windows, at either end, opened on to balconies. The pillars of the balconies were draped and garlanded with wreaths of roses now in full bloom. The floor of the room was the polished mosaic of different colors to which we have formerly alluded. Over the mantel-piece was sculptured in oak the Gordon arms. The room was wainscoted with dark wood, and hung with several fine paintings, by Copley and Stuart, of different members of the family. A grand piano, lately arrived from New York, was the most modern-looking article in the room. Most of the furniture was of heavy dark mahogany, of an antique pattern. Clayton sat by the door, still admiring the avenue of oaks which were to be seen across the waving green of the lawn.

In about half an hour Nina reappeared in a flossy cloud of muslin, lace, and gauzy ribbons. Dress was one of those accomplishments for which the little gypsy had a natural instinct; and, without any apparent thought, she always fell into that kind of color and material which harmonized with her style of appearance and character. There was always something floating and buoyant about the arrangement of her garments and drapery; so that to see her move across the floor gave one an airy kind of sensation, like the gambols of thistle-down. Her brown eyes had a peculiar resemblance to a bird's; and this effect was increased by a twinkling motion of the head, and a fluttering habit of movement peculiar to herself; so that when she swept by in rosy gauzes, and laid one ungloved hand lightly on the piano, she seemed to Clayton much like some saucy bird—very good indeed if let alone, but ready to fly on the slightest approach.

Clayton had the rare faculty of taking in every available point of observation, without appearing to stare.

"'Pon my word, Nina," said Mr. Carson, coming towards her with a most delighted air, "you look as if you had fallen out of a rainbow!"

Nina turned away very coolly, and began arranging her music.

"Oh, that's right!" said Carson; "give us one of your songs. Sing something from the Favorita. You know it's my favorite opera," said he, assuming a most sentimental expression.

"Oh, I'm entirely out of practice—I don't sing at all. I'm sick of all those opera-songs!" And Nina skimmed across the floor, and out of the open door by which Clayton was lounging, and began busying herself amid the flowers that wreathed the porch. In a moment Carson was at her heels; for he was one of those persons who seem to think it a duty never to allow any one to be quiet, if they can possibly prevent it.

"Have you ever studied the language of flowers, Nina?" said he.

"No, I don't like to study languages."

"You know the signification of a full-blown rose?" said he, tenderly presenting her with one.

Nina took the rose, coloring with vexation, and then, plucking from the bush a rose of two or three days' bloom, whose leaves were falling out, she handed it to him, and said,—

"Do you understand the signification of this?"

"Oh, you have made an unfortunate selection! This rose is all falling to pieces!" said Mr. Carson, innocently.

"So I observed," said Nina, turning away quickly; then, making one of her darting movements, she was in the middle of the saloon again, just as the waiter announced dinner.

Clayton rose gravely, and offered his arm to Aunt Nesbit; and Nina found herself obliged to accept the delighted escort of Mr. Carson, who, entirely unperceiving, was in the briskest possible spirits, and established himself comfortably between Aunt Nesbit and Nina.

"You must find it very dull here—very barren country, shockingly so! What do you find to interest yourself in?" said he.

"Will you take some of this gumbo?" replied Nina.

"I always thought," said Aunt Nesbit, "it was a good plan for girls to have a course of reading marked out to them when they left school."

"Oh, certainly," said Carson. "I shall be happy to mark out one for her. I've done it for several young ladies."

At this moment Nina accidentally happened to catch Clayton's eye, which was fixed upon Mr. Carson with an air of quiet amusement greatly disconcerting to her.

"Now," said Mr. Carson, "I have no opinion of making blues of young ladies; but still, I think, Mrs. Nesbit, that a little useful information adds greatly to their charms. Don't you?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Nesbit. "I've been reading 'Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' lately."

"Yes," said Nina, "aunt's been busy about that ever since I can remember."

"That's a very nice book," said Mr. Carson, looking solemnly at Nina; "only, Mrs. Nesbit, an't you afraid of the infidel principle? I think, in forming the minds of the young, you know, one cannot be too careful."

"Why, he struck me as a very pious writer!" said Aunt Nesbit, innocently. "I'm sure, he makes the most religious reflections, all along. I liked him particularly on that account."

It seemed to Nina that, without looking at Clayton, she was forced to meet his eye. No matter whether she directed her attention to the asparagus or the potatoes, it was her fatality always to end by a rencounter with his eye; and she saw, for some reason or other, the conversation was extremely amusing to him.

"For my part," said Nina, "I don't know what sort of principles Aunt Nesbit's history, there, has; but one thing I'm pretty certain of,—that I'm not in any danger from any such thick, close-printed, old, stupid-looking books as that. I hate reading, and I don't intend to have my mind formed; so that nobody need trouble themselves to mark out courses for me! What is it to me what all these old empires have been, a hundred years ago? It is as much as I can do to attend to what is going on now."

"For my part," said Aunt Nesbit, "I've always regretted that I neglected the cultivation of my mind when I was young. I was like Nina, here, immersed in vanity and folly."

"People always talk," said Nina, reddening, "as if there was but one kind of vanity and folly in the world. I think there can be as much learned vanity and folly as we girls have!" And she looked at Clayton indignantly, as she saw him laughing.